Quote:
Originally Posted by GirlySports
Let's compare Canada to Australia. Both countries don't really care about soccer. Australian league matches barely get 10000 people. They don't play in any nasty places or have any weather/altitude advantages. SCG or the big MCG aren't really fortresses. They also have alot of immigrants that cheer for the opponent in those games. Australia would be happy to get 50% cheering for them in an international game. Players are the same make and style physically. They also have players that could have played for them choose other countries. So why is Canada so much worse than Austrailia?
Coaching.
Australia invests in the national team and gets coaches like Venebles, Hiddink and now Holland's Pim Verbeek. They've been to the World Cup or right on the doorstep in the last two decades.
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A lot of this is inaccurate. Soccer is much higher profile in Australia than it is in Canada, the fact that they have a fairly strong domestic league alone demonstrates this. They obviously don't have a weather advantage, but as someone who was in the crowd at Telstra Stadium (now ANZ, they don't play in the SCG) when they beat Uruguay to advance to the 2006 WC I can tell you that there was an obvious home field advantage that night. There were a fair number of Uruguayans there (I was actually pulling for Uruguay as I worked with a half dozen Uruguayans), but the vast majority of the crowd were pulling for the home side. Having been to other internationals it's rare to see more than a handful of away fans, remember that most of their games are against the likes of Oman, Baharain etc.
I'm not sure how you can point at the coaching at the elite level and decide that is the difference maker when a simple glance at the rosters indicates otherwise. The Australian roster is packed with first team regulars in the elite European leagues. Canada has none. Coaching at the senior level doesn't account for this, it's about youth development and producing top level talent. None of the guys Australia has hired would have taken Canada to the world cup, the talent simply isn't there.