moops

I'm pretty sure he played in the Asian cup qualifiers last time, as the team was mostly HAL players as they played out of FIFA recognised international dates.

It may also show how many people are excited by the FFA cup?

Great to see Aziz not only starting, but playing well too. It was disappointing, to say the least, to see him leave for Turkey as a fringe socceroo with his career on the rise, only to return a year later bereft of confidence and (even worse) into the clutches of Aloisi. Now that he's broken through to the first team, I hope he can maintain this start and make that left back position his own. Nothing wrong with Turkish football and for a team like Bursaspore, is pretty big. If he gets more games, he is more than a chance

Great to see Aziz not only starting, but playing well too. It was disappointing, to say the least, to see him leave for Turkey as a fringe socceroo with his career on the rise, only to return a year later bereft of confidence and (even worse) into the clutches of Aloisi. Now that he's broken through to the first team, I hope he can maintain this start and make that left back position his own. He has great determination that's for sure and I hope he gets more starts and takes LB from Davidson. They both started similar in being forwards, yet both became LB (for different reasons), though I would rather Azis.

Not much wrong with Orlando.

Aziz, Babalj and Good will be Socceroos, only FFA(NSW) bias will get in their way. Just hope Babalj gets in the first team and scores a few braces, or Taggart will be before him.

In that, Maluda and almedia thanks.

It is totally a coaching issue, players being selected for one. Two, the movement and transision in attack is awful as you have pointed out. Defensively there is no plan, it is very reactive, without structure it's hard to single out the odd one out, when there is no plan. I love Trani, his tweets are brilliant, but his senior I have doubts in.

I agree, but movement and passing speed and accuracy in the front third has always been an identified issue and has never been fixed. Agree *1000

He played for our NYL side last season. Yep, why is he a trialists? Especially considering their policy .

I disagree to an extent, I think the coaching is holding people back. Which is two fold, it creates doubt (conference falls) and positive movement, the guys are hesitant moving from position.

Haha, I'm not their biggest fan by no means and if heart got a percentage of support they had, or any other team (I'm pretty sure we are the only A-League team not get any form of assistance from the ffa) we may have done better, at least in the ice bin department. But CCM are probably more poor than us, trying to keep their centre of excellence afloat, but they do pretty well. City shouldn't look at what if's, but what we can do better.

Aren't Spain and Greece going through a depression of sorts?

Presumptions makes an ass out of you and me. We can only go on what's put before us, which to me is a bit wanting so far. WSW were probably the only team other than us not to take th FFA cup seriously, because they played ACL 4 days after or something. Whoever goes far in the FFA cup will have a good season one could postulate, let alone the confidence boost, but a good pre-season against A-League opposition. It's almost an extended season and if you include finals, to miss out on both means you play good opposition a lot less and our season is short enough as it is. Worry is not unfounded, it's not pessimistic, it's a deduction built on truism.

To be honest I'd rather a policy of, if you're good enough, your old enough. If there was a 16yr old who was as good technically as an 18yr old, I know who I would rather.No, I didn't mean its about players being a certain age, rather its about having an intake of about 6 players each year and these players then staying for 3 seasons. Anyway signing school age kids brings another whole lot of challenges (like providing an opportunity for them to actually go to school). True, but it could coincide with the school program they have running, could be like a scholarship type thing. So not only will they train at a higher level, they will play football at school and get (correct me if I am wrong) private school education. But I understand what you are saying and I am not commenting to you Personly, just my view on the subject. As I would love it if guys at 18 were knocking on the door of first team action, rather than getting to grips with the NYL. Also I just wouldn't want to miss out on the next Danny Desilva to another club or apathy.

Beat me to it. I hope he gets some first team action and does well, it seems he is over his injury which is good news.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Lahm#2014_World_Cup Another source here: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jun/17/world-cup-2014-talking-points-germany-portugal I fully agree that Lahm is a great full-back, and Germany has really missed him when he hasn't played or when he's been played in midfield. They had the central defenders Howedes and Boateng as their fullbacks in the 2014 WC group stage (see here, here and here), and apart from their win against Portugal following Portugal's implosion, Germany was pretty unconvincing against Ghana and the USA. On German expectations pre-world cup, they were pessimistic: "If Reus’s absence has not quite punctured Germany’s dream of a first trophy since Euro 96, it certainly added to what has been a fairly deflating buildup. [...] The upshot of all this has been a very peculiar, unforgiving form of pessimism. Many Germans do not truly expect Die Nationalmannschaft to win the tournament – Löw even had to address questions about a group-stage exit and admitted that “change would be necessary” if that catastrophe came to pass" (http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/09/philipp-lahm-germany-world-cup). The lack of strikers was a real concern ahead of the WC, as was their injury list, as the article above indicates. IMO the analogy holds up pretty well. And it's a reminder that a team's supporters can easily systematically underrate that team, because supporters know every vulnerability with the team and fear they all will be a real weakness when that team starts playing. But often numerous of those potential vulnerabilities end up not being that important (e.g. Klose being Germany only proper striker didn't prevent them from goalscoring, and even Howedes & Boateng did well enough in the fullback positions). And beyond the team itself, there's the fact that every other World Cup contender ended up not being as good as predicted (in particular Spain and Brazil). I won't run through all 9 A-League opponents, but I'll just point out 1 example with Brisbane, who lost arguably the A-League's best striker in Berisha and replaced him with some guy from the Macedonian football league! He was about their 3rd choice for a new striker, unsurprisingly. If our first choice striker was signed from the Macedonian football league, this forum would go ballistic. So IMO it's crystal clear that Brisbane have not recruited 'well', and they are significantly worse off with the loss of Berisha and Franjic. And I think on this forum other teams sometimes get treated more lightly than Melbourne City, and other A-League teams and coaches get talked up when they are really not that impressive. I ultimately think there will be a lot more changes for the good than what's being anticipated ATM. Torn Asunder provides a good list above of real problems that have hurt the team in seasons past, and whilst a lot of those points were accurate for past seasons, I expect a number of those points to either stop being an issue by next season or to not be that damaging, in the same way that the many 'weaknesses' in the German NT ultimately didn't weaken the team that significantly, and didn't stop it from winning the biggest football competition. I'm not saying it'll all go perfectly next season. There will undoubtedly be bumps in the road. But I'm firmly of the opinion that things won't be as bad as some suggest, and I don't think the history of recent seasons will simply repeat itself next season as some are implying. Ah, yeah I read it wrong and thought you said something else, my mistake mate. We can only wait and see, I am not holding my breath though.

Haha, maybe I read it wrong in my head, a faux pas. Excuse me Murfy.

Talk about damning with faint praise. Haha, one does try. I'm more worried about central midfield tbh and if he improves again like last year, I'm won't be worried about him at all to becoming club hero!

Yes, I understand, there is all sorts of speculation why Pep plays him there. But the majority of his career has been at RB and arguably one of the best in the business. He has always played RB for Germany (nominally) and was moved back there halfway through the WC. If Lahm was the weakest link, then I'm flummoxed as he is very versatile and talented. The doubt as far as I knew was lack of strikers (but they still had goal scorers) and that no European team had won it on Sth American soil. I just found it a puzzling analogy, especially with Sami Khadira who's no slouch.

I do think the Hoff improved a lot last year and if he would cut in more often and bring a new element to his game he could do a job for us. All players develop at different rates and some are late bloomers, he is 24-25, so he's not going to be a world beater, but for the A-League can do a job. If he learns how to jockey and improve his balance, he won't be worse than some.

To be honest I'd rather a policy of, if you're good enough, your old enough. If there was a 16yr old who was as good technically as an 18yr old, I know who I would rather.

I hope Schroen really goes well, I would love it if he was knocking on the seniors door.

I am sorry, but what you say about Lahm is terribly wrong! Always played LB for Germany and rated best LB in the Bundesliga, if not the world. MV! Sydney, AU, Brisbane. Perth have recruited well and the jets will be a lot better than last year. Edit: i ment RB, not LB

The difference is that the best can come in an implement massive change in a short time period. And I would have liked it if City made a big statement by getting someone capable of thisThat is one of the biggest differences between the best coaches and the rest. But remember that we are a tiny club in the grand scheme of things so I'd assume that your not expecting a mourinho or van gaal to be hired for our club. Ghuangzhou have Lippi.... (I get they are a bigger side than us, but we should be aiming to be right up with the best in asia) Besides big name proven coaches, there are some promising prospects in our back yard and abroad. Even if Damien Mori (who by all accounts gets pretty good plaudits) was signed, I would feel more comfortable tbh.