Welcome!

By registering with us, you'll be able to discuss, share and private message with other members of our community.

Sign Up Now!

Poppa Out

Again - that record is outstanding.

However, the big games for me is what I worry about. In both the semi and the final of the ACL there were some very dubious decisions favouring WSW - 2 red cards in the first leg of the semi and then at least six decent penalty claims knocked back in the final. Ante Covic, Anthony Golec and Brendan Santalab all should have had penalties against them appeared to handle the ball in the box in the second leg. This causes me to discount his effort here to some extent (still very impressive though - particularly when you look at the lineups in retrospect)

Yes decisions can always go two ways - but his big game record does not stack up. Is it 5 grand final losses now.

I disregard the record in his Socceroo tenure as being pressured. Firstly he always had at least one more round to make it and secondly there was no pressure on him at all. If he failed it was Arnold's failure.

The World Cup is a different beast and I'm afraid his tactical intransigence will be his (and our) downfall. I will be very happy to be proven wrong. I just fear I won't be.

To me he is the flip side to Ange's naive "I'm going to beat the best in the world playing aggressive football" and to a large extent ignoring defence. Popovic's answer seems to be I'm going to stop the best in the world scoring again us while hoping to scrape a goal.
A bit of context to the acl win. He did that with a transition side that would go onto finish second last in the A League. The tie against sanfrecce was the final match for Hersi, Ono and that iteration. He beat Evergrande (with Diamanti, Gilardinho, and Lippi), FC Seoul and Al Hilal with the side that finished second last. Only against Al Hilal were we outplayed, and you're correct they should have had multiple penalties and won.

The achievement was remarkable, that side had no business doing what they did.
 
Will hold fire till after the friendlies, given the circumstances he took over, but he does have form with dads armies

Mooy of all people struggled to break in at wsw under poppa
Not really true about mooy, fair about liking older guys.

Mooy played a lot, but didn't explode until he left. But he was behind Ono who was the sides best player.

I think he had actually been better with young guys for aus than at any of his clubs. Low bar of course.

I would like to see Segacic brought in, I think he will be great for Pompey, but he didn't even start for Sydney last year. Probably a Talay error, but still.

More than new players, I'd like to see the style progress in the friendlies. Despite the stereotype, he did do this with wsw.
 
Not really true about mooy, fair about liking older guys.

Mooy played a lot, but didn't explode until he left. But he was behind Ono who was the sides best player.

I think he had actually been better with young guys for aus than at any of his clubs. Low bar of course.

I would like to see Segacic brought in, I think he will be great for Pompey, but he didn't even start for Sydney last year. Probably a Talay error, but still.

More than new players, I'd like to see the style progress in the friendlies. Despite the stereotype, he did do this with wsw.
Thought mooy was behind la rocca? Poppa liked playing mooy deep but city liked him as a 10

Wsw played so many games that season that mooy got a reasonable number of games but not many
 
A bit of context to the acl win. He did that with a transition side that would go onto finish second last in the A League. The tie against sanfrecce was the final match for Hersi, Ono and that iteration. He beat Evergrande (with Diamanti, Gilardinho, and Lippi), FC Seoul and Al Hilal with the side that finished second last. Only against Al Hilal were we outplayed, and you're correct they should have had multiple penalties and won.

The achievement was remarkable, that side had no business doing what they did.
Hence my line - This causes me to discount his effort here to some extent (still very impressive though - particularly when you look at the lineups in retrospect)
 
As much as I hated to admit it, each campaign survived of the GG with the remaining players still having the experience to instill confidence. 2014 was very tight given late goals against Iraq away and home against Oman. In turn we should've won in Japan.

2018 was alright but for a silly game in Thailand and Saudi also hanging around forever.

2022 was where the GG had gone and the cohesion really started slipping. Covid aside we paid dearly with wasteful displays playing the wrong players and one or two late dodgy pens.
 
As much as I hated to admit it, each campaign survived of the GG with the remaining players still having the experience to instill confidence. 2014 was very tight given late goals against Iraq away and home against Oman. In turn we should've won in Japan.

2018 was alright but for a silly game in Thailand and Saudi also hanging around forever.

2022 was where the GG had gone and the cohesion really started slipping. Covid aside we paid dearly with wasteful displays playing the wrong players and one or two late dodgy pens.
Its been really hard with the lack of investment in youth. Thankfully we have academies down to u13s and reserve sides in the npl which is step one ....
 
Its been really hard with the lack of investment in youth. Thankfully we have academies down to u13s and reserve sides in the npl which is step one ....
Wouldn't have worked under Ange but I wonder how we may have been in Brazil with Wilkshire, Neill and Kennedy. Rhys Williams was good at the time too but always injured.

Hard to pinpoint the lowest point as 2015 boosted us. Second half of 2013 was very concerning as was the 2019 Asian Cup style of play.
 
Wouldn't have worked under Ange but I wonder how we may have been in Brazil with Wilkshire, Neill and Kennedy. Rhys Williams was good at the time too but always injured.

Hard to pinpoint the lowest point as 2015 boosted us. Second half of 2013 was very concerning as was the 2019 Asian Cup style of play.
Neill's last few games for Socceroos, he was booed incessantly by the local crowd as definitely living off past glories, he was really poor for Socceroos. they had back to back 6 nil losses to Brazil & France.
 
Back
Top