Davy, your mob would've beaten us with a full-strength squad - I'm pretty certain of that. And with some luck, they could at least have drawn this one with the players they had as far as I'm concerned.
With Farina putting pharking Sterjovski up front as a lone striker, and Popovic (how many own goals did he cause at Palace?) in defence, together with this bloody awful formation Farina plays, it was always going to turn out like it did, if not worse.
Sterjovski didn't look like controlling one ball within 10 metres of him. So many better forwards around the place than him it's not funny IMO. When was the last time he scored either in international football or at club level? I've forgotten.
In my opinion, the only guy who really looked like scoring was Colosimo, and thanks to the poor man's Maldini we have coaching our team, he was left on the bench until there was less than half an hour to go.
As for the idea of playing only ONE forward against a weakened NZ team... :(
If we play like that in the Confed Cup we may as well not make the trip to Germany IMO. Lots of anger around the place - especially on the GGArmy board - after this match, with the squad selections, the starting lineup and the poxy 4-5-1 formation Farina chose yet again.
On another note - WHY did Farina pick Thwaite for a game like this (I have to think he would've done a better job than Popovic if he'd got a start) if he never intended to play him? What was the point there?