Well we got there in the end, but it was tougher than it should have been. All eyes on the group draw now, hopefully the gods are kind to us this go around. I think going to Russia we will benefit from teams actually attempting to play against us. Without a clinical finisher is becomes tough to break down a team whose plan is to stop any football being played, which was Honduras as well as every team we played in qualification apart from Japan. Teams over there will come up against us and try and win the game, rather than look for a 0-0.
At the game with a mate at halftime he looked at me and commented that he had no idea what Honduras' game plan was, they basically hoofed everything long, fell on the floor at every opportunity and stalled at every stoppage. The bigger question was how did they finish above USA in qualification. I don't think we will come up against a team that poor in Russia. I think this team has it's level and there's a quality of team we can do well against, but there is a style we will struggle against too, which has been highlighted this campaign.
I think that we may do reasonably well provided we don't score a horror group.
There are a few nations on our level that made the final cut.
But of course …... we must come up with a better approach to capitalizing on the scoring opportunities we create.
The pots are based on world rankings. There are teams in each pot that I think we can get results against, which leaves me with confidence. 2014 was almost literally the worst case scenario. We've got almost a full season to find some goal scorers, which often is confidence and form. If Juric can have a good season in Switzerland he could be the man, otherwise there is always MacLaren or the blokes in the A-League. They should all be firing up about now, a good season could see them off to Russia to play in front of the world and to get their names up in lights.
