Group C - France, Australia, Peru, Denmark

[social]

Australian football will be fine going forward as it currently enjoys the second highest participation rate of any sport among kids and that's only increasing

The real issues are player development and the ability to attract some of the really elite junior sporting talent as they tend to gravitate towards other sports but even that might change with population demographics

Loooooooong stretch to believe that we'll ever be a top tier nation though

 

[social]

Was going to say Viduka, but looking up the numbers not great from an international POV.

More facilitator than goal scorer

 

[social]

The 'we don't have strikers!' brigade is the best meme in Australian football. Who was the last goal-scoring striker we actually had? None in my lifetime. It's always been the issue.

Can't think of one and I can just about remember our first WC appearance

They vary between guys who aren't out and out goal scoring strikers who were called on to do a job (Viduka, Cahill, Kewell, etc) to those that didnt have the skill (Thompson, Kennedy, etc)

To the best of my recollection, we've never produced anything remotely resembling a footballing equivalent of a Lockett, Slater or Campese

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Was going to say Viduka, but looking up the numbers not great from an international POV.

Yeah Viduka was unfairly maligned a bit over here for not scoring many international goals but he was used very differently for the national side. He generally played as a target man who held up the ball for our attacking midfield talent like Kewell, Cahill, Bresciano, Culina etc to run off. He was pretty great at it, but the Australian public doesn't really watch or understand the nuances of the game and saw him banging in goals for Leeds, Newcastle, Middlesbrough etc and equated his lack of goals as failure. I can understand it but it was pretty annoying at the time.

 

[sledger]

Over here he got lots of sick because he never ran/seemed to do any work