keep thinking back to how shit we were in the confederations cup. yes guus might have made a couple of mistakes but he has completely transformed the team, he instilled a new sense of confidence, teamwork, organisation, and tactical awareness. what he has done in the short time he had and PART-TIME is nothing short of amazing
I think Guus' off-field preperation has been great, he prepared the team very well both physicall and mentally for all games. HOWEVER, I question his decisions in games. Against Japan, he played players out of position and had Cahill benched, it was only his what I could ony describe as panick reaction, to put what like 4 people up front and bring on fresh legs, that got that win. It should have been alot easier. Secondly, against Croatia, putting Kalac on, sure Swartzer wasnt in his best form, but he was by no means playing crap, and da Italy game once again showed that he is all quality. Lastly, against Italy, he waits till their is like 10mins left on the clock, to bring on Aloisi, and holds back Kennedy who, if you watched any of our other games, has an instant impact upon games. Fair enough he was trying to set us up for an easy extra time victory, but he wasnt reading the game well, it was obvious we were struggling in attack and they were starting to look very dangerous, but he failed to act. And in light of our 'fitness' why he was worried about conserving players on the bench is interesting.
On top of this, he never played Skoko and Lazarides etc as someone mentioned... opting to go for players like Wilkshire who oppositions completed dominanted, particularly physically. And also, despite saying he prepared the team well mentally, I think their were some issues that the players werent happy with... such as announcing the team late, the last thing they should need to worry about is that. If anyone saw an interview with Swartzer, some comments were thrown around which gave me the distinct impression that he was very pissed off about being dropped and with Guus' strategy of telling the players late who was in the team... and Im guessing he was jus reflecting players thought tbh.
As for the confederations cup as well.... I dont really know to much about it.... but I can only assume we were without alot of palyers so its hard to gauge his coaching ability by comparing how we've gone to that.
And dont get me wrong, Im just looking at it here from one perspective..... and in the end, like the Japan game, it comes down to a decision to go one way or another..... which the coach had to choose, making him the villain of the hero. In the Japan game we has the hero, but in the Italy game he let us down with the late and lack intertchange use.
It was Lucas Neill's mistake and a clear penalty and everyone should stop denying it
Have you even seen the game? Neil went to ground, kept his hands to himself and kept still.... the Italian guy than proceeded to run into him on purpose to milk the foul. If that is a foul, then soccer is the softest sport in this world, where you get penalised for nothing. It should have been a yellow card to the Italian for diving :uhhuh:
