World Cup Fever In Full Swing!

May 21st, 2006 | by: Matt |

Here in Melbourne, things are going off like a frog in a sock on the football front.
The Greek national side has arrived, our boys are in town, and there is a football match to be played on Thursday night at the MCG in front of over 90,000 people.
In the words of Big Kev, I’m excited!
All people are talking about at the moment, is the World Cup, and the Greece game. It is great to see. For those of you lucky enough to be going to the game (like myself) and in Melbourne it is worth noting the appearance schedule if you wanna see the boys before the match.

The boys will be appearing at Federation Square at around 1.30pm tomorrow if you wanna get down there and see them. From my understanding, this is the only chance to see them before the game and before they fly out.

Furthermore, the Greeks are holding an open training session tomorrow at 6pm, at Bob Jane Stadium (South Melbourne) if you want to get in on their match tactics.

Anyway, it will be a big week of football and hype before they head off to Europe and Germany.

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Raheel

I wish the Aussie team all luck against the Greeks but focus should remain on the World Cup. I am most concerned about the fitness of Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell , cuz they are a pair of “Impact” players , needed sorely to win a majr tournament. I know Hiddink would want all the players to perform in optimal fashion. This match would help im to finalise his starting XI .
Buzzline:” Stay clear of injuries”
Karlo

Staying clear of injuries won’t be enough for the Socceroos, they need a miracle to get out of their group. Croatia and Brazil will have fun running up their goal differential against the Aussies.
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2006/friendlies-fixtures-for-the-week-ahead.html Friendlies Fixtures for the Week Ahead – FIFA World Cup 2006 – World Cup 2006 Blog

[...] The World Cup teams are beginning to intensify their preparations at their training camps. The upcoming week features 23 exhibition matches. The United States, South Korea, and Croatia all play a pair of games. The match I am most interested in seeing is taking place in Melbourne where Australia will be playing Greece in front of close to 100,000 fans. Make sure you check out the team blogs for thoughts on these games. We’ll also probably do a few LiveBlogs to keep in shape for the 64 we will do in Germany. [...]
Bigone

Karlo, you once again show your ignorance of Australian football. Australia in the past year has beaten England away from home and Uraguay on a home and away basis. I think that more than qualifies them for a place in the world cup, and the repect that goes with it.
Croatia, if you recall were well beaten by England at Euro2004 4-2. England with Rooney, Lampard and Co., smashed Croatia that day and the margin should have been much greater. Good luck to you guys trying to get past them again in the group stages of Euro2008 qualifying, you will need it! Dont forget smarty-pants, Croatia will lose many players from this current side through retirement, being, N.Kovac,R.Kovac,Simic,Tudor, and Prso. These guys are the best players in their current WC Squad.
Go Australia and Croatia, may the best team win!
Martin

Karlo, have you been hiding under a rock or something. As Bigone has pointed out, Australia have beaten some top quality nations recently and the World Cup always have their upsets and underdogs. Australia could just be just that team of this World Cup.
Karlo

A 2003 friendly win against England is recent? Beat someone in a real competition then come talk to me. Beating a team’s “B” squad is nothing to be proud of. Plus with a population of 20,000,000 people Australia should be one of the top nations on the planet. Meanwhile Croatia can boast the highest quality players on the planet per capita. BTW Bigone the best team will win, I predict a 3-1 scoreline for Croatia.
Gerard

Hey Karlo. Australia’s win over England in 2003 was not against the B squad. Australia was winning 2-0 agaist the England A squad at 1/2 time. Then Swen swapped in his B sqad. He claims that he wanted to give them a try out. I would suggest that he was worried that Australia might actually win if the A squad remained on the field. Well, Australia did win the game, and Swen had to play his best 22 players to try and stop them.
Martin

Gerard, thanks for pointing the facts to Karlo. England did indeed use their best 22 players and still did not beat the Aussies.

Karlo, we beat Uruguay to get to the World Cup (in our most recent non freindly). You might think so what. Put it in perspective. Urugay beat Argentina in their last WC qualifier. Who did Croatia beat in their last friendly? Argentina.

So does that make Australia better than Argentina and thus on the same level as Croatia?
Who knows until they play each other. We will find out in the World Cup.

BTW, how do you come up with Croatia boasting the highest quality players on the planet per capita. Show us the evidence.
Martin

Last real friendly I meant ie against WC opposition. Austria wasn’t much of a game.