Fulham’s Schwarzer Excited By Australian Talent

By Thomas Rooney

Experienced goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer has revealed that he is extremely excited by the depth of talent in the current Australia squad. The Fulham man believes that the quality of the players right now is stronger than at any other time in his international career.

Schwarzer has been encouraged by how the team has coped without the likes of Josip Skoko, Tony Popovic, Tony Vidmar, Stan Lazaridis and Zeljko Kalac – who have all retired from international football. Australia have recorded memorable victories over Nigera, Ghana and the Netherlands in the last year and as things stand, the football odds suggest that they are all set to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The new era of players have received encouragement from Schwarzer who says that they have ‘come a really long way over the last year’ and that the ‘attitude and commitment’ of this Australian team is second to none. Most significantly though, there is still two years to go until the World Cup and should the improvement continue at its current speed, many online betting sites will be tipping Australia to have a successful tournament – much like they did in 2006.

All in all, Schwarzer is right to be encouraged by what he has seen unfold in front of him. Tim Cahill and Brett Emerton have been the shining lights and provide much valued experience. However, it is the emergence of players such as Scott McDonald, Chris Coyne and Josh Kennedy that has really improved things. They are all determined to achieve great things for their national team and it is good to see them establishing themselves in the squad.

As for Schwarzer himself, he is settling into life at Fulham. The 36-year-old made the switch from Middlesbrough in the summer and even though his new team sit 17^th in the Premier League – Schwarzer has put in a number of fine displays. Fulham haven’t lost a game by more than one goal so far this season and this has a lot to do with the form of the Australian.

Schwarzer has certainly established himself as one of the better keepers in England in recent years. After spells at Bradford City, Middlesbrough and now Fulham he will go down as a very reliable goalkeeper.

As for what the future may hold, well I expect him to carry on playing in England for at least a couple more years. Physically, he is very fit and mentally, he is determined to succeed. That’s a winning formula when you get to the latter stages of your career.

One thing for sure is that Schwarzer would love to be involved in the World Cup squad for 2010, where he would be amongst a group of players that he believes have an excellent chance of achieving great things for Australia.

Crowded House

For Melbourne, Hernandez is again available for selection. It will be interesting to see if Hernandez comes straight back into the team, which will probably be the case, and if so, who will be the unlucky midfielder that will be dropped from the team that destroyed Perth. Bredner and Pondeljak are likely candidates for the chop.

If you keep Pondeljak and allow Hernandez to come back in, will it be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen? Given that Thompson also has a tendency to drop deep and help with the build-up play, will there be too many creative players trying to make things happen such that they will get in each other’s way? But Pondeljak was outstanding against Perth with his incisive and intelligent through-balls and linkup play. His late runs into the box were also well timed and he could well have ended up with a few goals.

Bredner came in as the second defensive midfielder although he was given the licence to get up the park. Lopez seemed to have the more defensive role. Bredner basically played as almost a box to box midfielder, a role that is seemingly dying with increasing specialisation in midfield roles, and he provided balance to the Victory midfield. His performance also makes him hard to drop.

And then there is the question of whether Hernandez should come straight back into the team. The general consensus is that the Costa Rican is an automatic selection and has been in great form this season. While Hernandez has been playing well, I thought Victory’s play without Hernandez was much better than the performances I have seen with him (of course, the fact that the team was playing the hapless Glory was a big factor). I say this because Hernandez has a tendency to hold up the ball and slow down the play. With Pondeljak, the attack seemed to flow quicker before the defence was allowed to set itself as Pondeljak tends to play the ball earlier.

Some Victory fans may find this argument to drop Hernandez rather puzzling but I think they should review the game against Queensland. There were two main reasons why Melbourne looked lacklustre and failed to break down the Roar: 1) too many long balls which Moore was able to deal with and 2) when they did try and play it on the ground, they moved the ball quite slowly and allowed Queensland to setup their defence. When Hernandez went off, they actually played better and created some genuine chances. This was because they started to move the ball earlier (I’m not talking about early as in long balls. I’m talking about the midfielders passing the ball with their first or second touch before advancing themselves to provide an option).

So there you have it, the team should stay as it was.

Australia v Qatar – Preview

Predicted formation and line-up:

We will probably see the usual 4-2-3-1. Wilkshire and Chipperfield will be the full-backs. The main question is whether Moore will come in for Coyne. Coyne hasn’t been first-choice for his club which will count against him. Meanwhile, Moore has been playing regularly and has been in good form for the Roar. I think Moore will be picked. The main issue is that whatever central-pairing are chosen, the centre-backs are a bit slow. Quintana has a fair bit of pace and can potentially punish any errors in judgement.

Another selection dilemma is who will partner Culina in central midfield. I think the main candidates are Burns and Jedinak. Burns is probably the safe option and Pim does seem to like him. But Burns isn’t a regular for his Romanian club and his distribution was suspect against Uzbekistan. Defensively, he was quite good against the Uzbeks and his greater mobility could make him a better option for shutting down Quintana. If Jedinak can bring his A-League form, he provides some things that Burns lacks. If he plays with confidence in his own abilities, his distribution is generally accurate and he has the ability to switch the play between flanks. Both Burns and Jedinak can augment Culina who will be play-maker and will have a more attacking role. I think Jedinak is a better passer but Burns is more suited to handling Quintana (I don’t think Jedinak can keep up with Quintana in terms of pace). Given that basically everything good that Qatar produces flows through Quintana, the safe option of Burns will probably be preferred.

Emerton picks himself on the right. Cahill will play centrally. On the left, we could see Carney or Holman. Pim likes Holman’s dynamic style: his ability and willingness to carry the ball through the middle, to play one-twos and get beyond the striker. However, playing Holman may deprive the team of width and crosses from the left. Additionally, while Cahill and Holman are quite different players, they use the same area of the pitch, namely the space around the striker and the area of the box where they make their late-runs. Carney is also a player that can take on his opponent while he worked well with Chipperfield when he came on as a substitute against Uzbekistan. Additionally, given that Qatar has struggled to handle Australia’s aerial threat and we have our two best headers back in the team, Cahill and Kennedy, I think Carney should start from a tactical perspective while Holman can be used of the bench. This only leaves the striker role and Kennedy should lead the line.

I think the most important period of the game will be the first 20 minutes. We can blitz them in the first 20 was we did in Melbourne. We at least need to get on top, create chances and get the crowd going. Qatar will try and come out and control the game in the first 20 as we did against Uzbekistan. As we witnessed over there, this may cause the home team to never really get going.

Predicted Result: 2-0 with Kennedy and Cahill to score.

A note on the Qatar

No doubt the highly talented Quintana will be Pim’s main concern. In the last game, Pim tried to double team Quintana. Unfortunately, Quintana often beat both players or he would win a foul. I noted in my match review for that game that the two defenders got too close to Quintana and allowed him to beat both players in the one move. My suggestion would be to have Burns wear Quintana like a glove and not let him have a moments rest. A second defender should stand off and occupy the space that Quintana will try and dribble into. Hopefully this will nullify him as a threat.

Adelaide United v Bunyodkor

Result: 3-0

Attendance: 16,998 (Record attendance for Adelaide United. Congratulations!)

Crowded House: Watching on TV, the atmosphere at the packed out ground looked amazing. For the 90 minutes, the drums thundered and the fan sang. It was electric. The other codes can only dream of international nights like this.

Man of the Match: Fabian Barbiero. The backup player for the Reds was excellent. Actually he was outstanding. Rivaldo had a rather quiet night and this was mainly due to the work of Barbiero and Reid. Barbiero’s distribution was also generally good which was critical otherwise Adelaide would have been under pressure the entire game. He capped his performance with a goal, scrambling home the ball after a Travis Dodd knock down.

Special Mentions: The very young Adelaide defenders, as well as the older Costanzo, all deserve a mention. Bunyodkor only really had one clear-cut chance and Galekovic had a pretty quite night which was a testament to the performance of the defenders. Cassio for a superb second half performance, setting up all three goals. The Brazilian looked a little overawed the first half, rarely making his trademark runs or putting quality balls into the box. He really stood up in the second and his direct running proved to be the avenue to goal. And Cristiano for running himself into the ground. Playing the thankless role of the lone striker, he was often left isolated when the Uzbeks got on top in terms of possession. He capped his night off with a very coolly taken and very deserved penalty.

Missing in Action: No one!

Adelaide Verdict: This tie is far from over. The Uzbeks stream-rolled Saipa 5-1 at home. But United are a team that has only conceded 2 goals in the whole tournament. One away goal should seal the tie. We should not underestimate the gulf that should exist between the two sides. Rivaldo alone is being paid 4 times the entire salary of the Adelaide team. This should have been a no contest. Adelaide is riding a dream but I don’t want this to sound like they are getting lucky against their rich opponents. There are elements of luck no doubt but when you constrict the opponent to just one clear-cut chance in 90 minutes of football, it is clear that the result has been achieved through hard-work and discipline.

Round 7: Adelaide v Central Coast

Result: 3-3

Attendance: 9024

Man of the Match: This was very hard to pick since a lot of players had an up-and-down game. Captain reliable Travis Dodd was consistently dangerous throughout the night, running very direct at defenders which caused the Mariners all sorts of problems. He capped his game with a penalty. Sometimes his runs are a bit lucky as the ball often finds its way back to him after bouncing off a defender. But when you are willing to take defenders on, you make your own luck.

Special mentions: All of Pim’s call-ups have eventful nights. Galekovic was outstanding in the first half, pulling off two excellent and one world-class save, all from shots by Caceres. However, he had two howlers the in second, letting in a long shot from Jedinak that should have been comfortably saved and mistiming a rush-out, allowing Simon to get to the ball first which allowed the striker to round him and score. Jedinak had a rather quiet first half but bagged a second half double. Despite the goals, he still wasn’t as dominant as I have seen him this season. Like Jedinak, Matt Simon was quiet before he popped up late by winning a penalty and getting a goal. For Adelaide, Cassio was an every present danger and provided several dangerous deliveries into the box. Salley also had a good game as the defensive shield, particularly in the first half.

Missing in Action: Bradley Porter was very quiet playing on the left. Diego didn’t have a huge influence on the game either as Reid has really taken over in the play-maker role.

Adelaide Verdict: Two points dropped. This must have felt like a loss. After going 3-0 up earlier in the second half, it should have been all over. The Reds took the foot off the accelerator and lost all momentum. They really struggled to exert any control over the game in the second half and were lucky to not lose at the end.

Central Coast Verdict: An amazing come-back. They never really got going in the first half. And even when they drew level, their football still wasn’t as they fluent as showed against Perth. Given that they weren’t playing at their best and found themselves 3-0 down, the grinding performance gave them a much deserved point.

Garcia & City Take Premier League By Storm

Thomas Rooney – Freelance Sports Journalist

After winning promotion to the Premier League last season, the majority of football odds were condemning Hull City for relegation even before the new campaign got underway. However, after six games they find themselves in 6^th position after recording a famous victory over Arsenal last weekend. One man who has been heavily involved in proceedings for them is Australia’s Richard Garcia.

The former West Ham United player has played all but one of Hull’s games this season and even managed to score their equaliser in a hard earned 1-1 draw against Blackburn Rovers. The only game he has missed is the 2-1 away victory over Newcastle United.

Something that will concern Garcia though is the fact that he has yet to complete 90 minutes this season, meaning that he hasn’t quite secured himself in Phil Brown’s starting eleven. He is also yet to start a game since missing the victory over Newcastle and has had to settle for coming off the bench in the games against Everton and Arsenal.

In the famous win at the Emirates, Garcia came on to replace the injured George Boateng and helped ensure his team prevented the likes of Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor scoring an equaliser. He celebrated like his team had won the FA Cup at the end of the game and there is no doubt he is enjoying his time at the KC stadium.

Plying his trade in a successful Premier League side is a first for Garcia and it has been a fantastic rise for the 27-year-old. After starting as a trainee at West Ham, he moved to League One side Colchester United in the summer of 2004. During his second season at the club, he helped them achieve promotion to the Championship and was also involved in the FA Cup fifth round defeat to Chelsea.

Colchester had a successful first season in the Championship and Garcia was a very influential figure for them. They only just missed out on a play-off place and Garcia weighed in with 7 goals. It was at the end of this season though that he decided to move to Hull City and what a choice it was.

During his first season as a Hull player, he was a regular on the right wing and helped them achieve promotion to the Premier League through the play-offs. Now, as we know, they are flying high in the most exciting league in the world and Garcia will be loving every second of it. Their priority is still survival, but many football bets will be placed on achieving this now.

Richard Garcia will just be hoping that he can make his way back into the starting eleven as he continues to enjoy his career as a footballer in England.

Welcome Back Bleiberg

Like him or loath him, there is no doubt that Miron Bleiberg is a personality and I welcome his return to the A-League, if nothing than just for entertainment value. To be honest, we don’t have many personalities when it comes to the managers. Hopefully Bleiberg can spice things up a bit.

He reminds me of the ‘Special One’ with the way he goes back playing mind games with other clubs, well before he even has his team together. At the start of this season, he said that he was surprised that Sydney was the favourites and that he didn’t know why this was the case. In his recent interview, he was asked about signing players from rival A-League clubs, he had this to say about his local rivals: ‘A lot of players from the Roar have already got much more money than they deserve to get, so the Roar are wasting their resources which makes them weaker’. Let’s hope he can produce the football to back it up.

Moore has offered some entertaining and quick retorts, calling Bleiberg a clown and a liar, saying that he knows of 7-8 Roar players who have been contacted by their augural manager.

I think Bleiberg fits in well with what is happening at the Gold Coast: an ambitious billionaire trying to expand the frontiers of football with their brand new stadium and state-of-the-art facilities, a market which has all the football codes scrambling to get a piece of and poaching coaches from other clubs. Let’s hope it’s just an entertaining on the field.

Fine Form Awarded

It’s pretty hard to disagree with any of the A-League players selected by Pim as form was evidently the determining factor in selection. Shannon Cole continues his meteoric rise in Australian football and his ability to hit the ball with both feet is something few other players in the squad have. In him and Scott Jamison, we have two up-and-coming full-backs who can play on the left, a position which was looking very thin.

Jamison’s teammates, Paul Reid and Eugene Galekovic have earned selected on the back of Adelaide’s amazing ACL run. Reid’s selection was a bit of a surprise for me given that he is 29 and the fact that Australia currently has an abundance of central midfield talent. I would have preferred to see Pim select a young player, maybe Billy Celeski, Tarek Elrich or maybe the Queensland duo of Murdocca and McKay (both are underrated in the sense that outside of Roar fans, I don’t think their work gets much recognition). Travis Dodd was also unlucky to miss out. With his ability to ghost into the box from wide positions, I thought Pim might have at least wanted to get a close look at the Adelaide captain.

As for the defenders, Jade North retains his spot despite his patchy form. Craig Moore returns to international football. Vargas may be disappointed to miss out. I was a bit surprised by the selection of Cornthwaite and Wilkinson. To be honest, I think Cornthwaite and Wilkinson may have the same weaknesses as Topor-Stanley: their lack of pace and agility can be exposed by fleet-footed players. This was evidence when Antlers seemed to target Cornthwaite’s flank while Wilkinson struggled against speedy Thompson.

Matt Simon’s red-hot start to the season has earned him a call-up. Alex Brosque may be scratching his head given his form for Sydney.

And the great debate of Australian football, Nick Carle, won’t be making a return to Australian shores. Clearly there is some underlying reason for his continued exclusion and until Pim decides to tell the rest of us, the speculation and debate will continue.

Rethink

In my previous match reports, I have been very critical of Jedinak. I argued that I didn’t think he had much of a future in the national team. I’ve only recently started to watch him week to week  (and yes, paying for Foxtel is a pain and a drain) and now I understand why Pim likes him. Along with Celeski and Miller, he has been one of the outstanding players during the early part of the season. And it’s not just because of those quality free-kicks. It’s his command of the game that has been highly impressive, something he failed to achieve in his international games.

In his Socceroo outings, I noted how he didn’t demand the ball to be played through him as a first option and that all his passes were back to the defenders. This made me doubt his distribution as he was seemingly just a destroyer. But in his performances for the Mariners, he has been showing that he does have good distribution with his accurate cross-field passes that switch the play being particularly impressive. Much of the Mariners play does at some stage flow through him as he is very much the first option going forwards as well as the option used when trying to retaining or recycling possession. When he add in the fact that he is a threat at set-pieces with his height as well as ability dead-ball ability and his defensive qualities, you get a player that very much warrants consideration for national selection (may be just for A-League based teams for the time being), at least based on his club form.

So why have his performances for the Socceroos been so underwhelming? Undoubtedly the step-up in the standard plays a role. His inexperience at this level is another factor. Additionally, he has generally played in games where the whole team has underperformed. His future has an international player is far from assured, but there are definite reasons to believe that a future exist.

And finally, not watching the A-League and just listening to SBS’s analysis of it, with the Mariners, I was very much expecting to see a grinding team that lacked quality. This has hardly been the case. While the Victory are probably the best team to watch, the Mariners are not far behind. They are a team that will test very aspect of the opponent’s defence: the ability to defence set-pieces, the ability to defend aerial balls with the threat of Simon and the ability to cope with attacks down the middle with the likes of Caceres and Hutchinson. TWG, take note and please recognise the improvement.

A-League Round 6

Player of the Week

Adrian Caceres has become a real live-wire in the centre of the Mariners attack. With a goal and an assist (although there was shocking marking and positioning by Perth defenders for both goals), he provided a real classy edge in a dominant Mariners performance. When I did the preview for the Mariners, there was concern that the loss of Pondeljak would cause a lack of creativity in the middle. The performances of the Argentinean born Caceres have made this a non-issue. Let’s hope he keeps it going.

Goal of the Week

I’ll go with Tim Brown’s winner against Sydney. It wasn’t the cleanest of strikes and Jedinak’s accurate free-kick against Perth was a better goal but no other goal this round carried more significance. The Phoneix have finally registered a win in a performance that was gritty rather than entertaining. Herbert will no doubt be pleased with the fact that his team didn’t let their heads drop after going behind. They came back and produced some decent football in claiming all three points.

Team of the Week

All the winners have a right to claim this really: Wellington for getting their first win, Central Coast for their dominant performance, Queensland for beating the table toppers away from home. But the team of the week goes to Adelaide who grinded out a win against the injury hit Newcastle after their historic performance midweek in the ACL. It was hardly an inspired performance and both goals came in the last 20 minutes when Newcastle was down to 10 men. Still, given their midweek exertions, any kind of win would have been an accomplishment.

Unsolved mysteries

Melbourne again went down to ten men. Having played pretty poorly until then, they again started to turn on some good football after going a man down. Why?

Ouch!

Red-bearded (or brown) Tiatto is a non-too-subtle footballer and this even applies when his dribbling. The ex-Socceroo clubbed a rather unsuspecting Vargas in the throat with his elbow as he was making a run down the flank.

Pure comedy

After getting the winning goal, Tim Brown put in the weirdest challenge I’ve seen in a while. There were a few Wellington and Sydney players scrapping for the ball in the middle of the park. Brown somehow ended up on the ground before he started to reach out for the ball with his hands. Finding the ball out of reach, he started to grasp for the legs of the opponent. A free-kick was given but how Brown escaped a yellow card for this odd looking challenge I’ll never know.