alexISS wrote:Paphitis wrote:It does't really matter AlexISS. Australia never gets its pro team for friendlies. During the period there was no player that actually played in Australia. They were all in Europe and the team was based in London. Their home ground was Upton Park. Most of the team played in the EPL, Bundesliga, Belgium, and Scotland.
They had another team for friendlies utilizing Australian based players. Point is AlexISS, that team was world class and could beat any European team on its day and did so often.
Effectively, there was an Australia A and Australia B squad.
I guess there's no point in debating. It was you who claimed those numbers and, when they were proven wrong, you countered with "It doesn't really matter"?
Fine, have a nice day
I'm not making it up.
The rankings are there for all to see. Australia has ranked highly but are probably volatile because of the fact that the first team was never available for all its games. For example., Australia could go to the Confederations Cup with the first team, beat Brazil (which actually happened) and then they could have a friendly with Croatia and lose 2 - 0 or worse actually lose to a lower ranked team with its B Squad.
Then, in those days, Australia would go for months without playing a game because the players would not be cleared by their respective clubs in the height of the European season. It would just slide by default.
Which is probably why FFA rankings don't really mean much for some countries like Australia. But despite the difficulties, they were actually ranked 9th by ELO and 14th by FIFA.
Have a nice day.
