whufc wrote:Wedgie wrote:bennymacca wrote:I'm still unsure as to who you think you are arguing against. All I said was I thought we held our own but our finishing wasn't great. You are agreeing with me and yet still trying to find a way to argue?
I didn't address that point, I said we were much better ten years ago and you seemed to take exception with that which was discussed further. No arguments, just discussion on a sports forum.
We were better 10 years ago but
we are currently better than we were 20 odd years ago when we couldn't even beat Iran in World Cup qualifiers but are now the champions of Asia
The national side isn't a complete indication of what state the game is in the country.
Whether we like the A-League or not the game is in the best state it's been in our countries history and has an extremely bright future which hasn't always been the case especially in the dark late 90's of the NSL when clubs like Carlton and Collingwood were running around in front of 1k crowds
Did you watch that game? We missed five absolute sitters in the first ten minutes. We dominated them everywhere except for on the scoreboard. Even the Iran coach acknowledged that we should have been going to France.
1997 v Iran (2nd leg): Bosnich, Moore, Lazaridis, Horvat, Tobin, Zelic, Slater, Foster, Viduka, A. Vidmar, Kewell.
2016 v England: Ryan, Milligan, Risdon, Wright, Kruse, Mooy, Smith, Jedinak, Luongo, Rogic, McLaren.
We were clearly a better team from around 1995-2008ish than we are now.
Having said that, I lean more towards the view that this was just a golden generation of players rather than evidence that the NSL was better for player development than the A-League. I mean, for fifteen or so years after the formation of the NSL we had a relatively ordinary national team.
Folks claim that the NSL was better for development. Perhaps the fact that 150+ Australian players were starting every week compared to approximately
half that nowadays allowed for younger players to get more opportunities (although they were part time in the NSL). The NSL was by no means of a better standard overall, although there was always a significant difference between the top and bottom teams, bigger than there is now in the A-League (with the possible exception of the Mariners this year).
I agree though that the best way for young Australian soccer players to develop into world class players is for them to go to Europe, provided that they are actually playing - there's no point in signing for Ajax or someone only to sit on the bench or play in the reserves every week.