Relatively speaking, of course.
Not even up for debate.
Absolutely true. Why would they? All our player play in hick fucken backwater leagues like Scotland and Australia and J2. 95% of people would struggle to even name a player in the Australian squad.
Not sure what you’re driving at.
Our run to the world cup.
Kuwait
Jordan
Nepal
Chinese Taipei
8 games, 8 as favourite, 8 Wins
Saudi Arabia
Japan
Oman
China
Vietnam
10 games, 6 as clear favourite - 4 as non-favourite or even, 4 wins 3 draws.
France
Tunisia
Denmark
3 games, 1 as a clear underdog - 1 as non-favourite - 1 as approximately even, 1 win 1 loss so far.
So in our world cup cycle I would say we’ve played/will play one game as an “underdog”.
Like I said, I think it’s mostly the finals they’re all talking about. No one is saying we’re underdogs against Nepal.
I think you’re overthinking it a bit.
A lot of unwarranted confidence around for tomorrow night. We absolutely are clear underdogs. This is a Denmark side who have twice beaten France, who wiped us off the park. Euros semi-finalists two years ago. Even a draw would be an extraordinary achievement.
We all know this, but a draw isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. Denmark were well off it against Tunisia and are struggling for goals.
I think if we score one, it might be enough.
I’m expecting to get destroyed. However I felt the same before the Tunisia match so conflicted 
It’s possible.
And that’s about as optimistic as I’ve been at a World Cup, for quite a while.
Arnie has used this opportunity to put the spotlight on youth development as well as our spot in the pecking order domestically. We’re not underdogs, we’re the icing on a cake apparently.
Didn’t we just have a review that found we needed to be more Dutch and play small sided games? Or the review that suggested we play more tika taka and play out from the back?? Next thing we will be naturalising players from other countries to fix our shortcomings.
I know some associations are moving towards it but we really need to stop having our young kids playing on full sized pitches. There’s too much time and space for them so they don’t need to develop close ball control or move the ball on quickly.
Full sized field games shouldn’t start before 14.
I thought pretty much everywhere was doing that already. I know NWSF does small field games up to about 12 or so.
Same with (the mighty) Canterbury District. Progressively larger fields and more players but only hit full field at U13s
My nephews play in Drummoyne and looks like there’s three sizes of field. Tiny for up to 12 then the scale up slightly and then proper for teenagers
What we need for kids is hours of football at their feet with as little coaching as possible.
Our golden generation and us as footballers developed the majority of their ability through the many hours they/we played in the streets and the park.
Nowadays our six year olds gets one hour of “training” and one small sided game (30 minutes) a week for only twenty weeks a year. That averages out to around forty minutes of football a week in a year, most of which will be without them actually touching the ball.
Kids do that though… There’s plenty of kids that just go to the park to kick the ball around outside of training, or even during recess, lunch etc…
In any case, that’s up to parents isn’t it?
No where near as many as kids in the 70s, 80s and 90s. And I would be pretty certain that those kids who go to the park or have older brothers and play in the backyard heaps, are overall better players than those who do not.
So… what? Campaign to ban Fortnite?
If I remember correctly, I remember thinking they went full field a bit early when I was watching my nephews.
They’re all different but my eldest had no real interest in playing soccer until some of the kids in his class started playing at lunch and recess.
Today he told me excitedly that he borrowed a book about the world’s best kid soccer player (Caltex Cahill) and that he was bummed as they couldn’t go out and play at lunch.
If I go and play with him it’s basically him trying to leather the ball at me… If he plays with his mates he’ll run around forever just kicking and having fun.
I’ve said it before but we need to repurpose all tennis courts into all weather futsal cages. No booking systems and lights for the winter.
We need to make it as cheap as possible for kids to play with a club on a Saturday.
Have the club fund them, rather than they funding the club, so that the club can pay, has beens, coulda beens and never were going to be players as semi pros.