Quote:
Originally Posted by valo403
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.
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Aren't youth development coaches just an extension of the national coach? If the coach is good then those youth coaches are good too. Australia and Canada played in a playoff in 1994 and were bascially even. I would argue that Canada was unforunate not to win that series. Since then Canada has gone backwards and Australian forwards. Those Australian players at elite levels were kids in 94 and are the reward for that development. Where are Canada's players?
Those guys that Australia hired could have gotten Canada into a World Cup, or at least closer, like in the Hex. Once in the hexagonal, anything can happen. The fact that Canada can't even make it into the top 6 or top 10 in CONCACAF is pretty embarassing.
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ok back to the World Cup.
Lassana Diarra is out of the WC roster after being diagnosed with intestinal pain and unpredictable illness. He won't be replaced, so France will go with only 3 def-mid, even though Domenech always plays with two DM even against teams like Faeroe Islands. What the heck is going on over there?
I find soccernet a really good source of information.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/?ver=us&cc=5901