The thing about the socceroos is that if we're on honest, we were doomed from the start. The squad Pim picked was horrendously conservative. It was based on having experience over quality. Better football nations would not have touched the likes of Grella, Moore and Chipperfield. There would be no need to because they already would've had the next generation developing and ready to step in. In Grella's spot i would've gone with Valeri, with Jedinak as the back up option with Culina and Wilkshere being the further back up.
In Moore's case well he got a stay of execution when Kisnorbo got injured. No doubts Bosnar and Ognenovski should've been given a chance to stake their claim for the squad because they appear to be far better options than Moore. The bottom line is we needed to blood younger players, guys with talent earlier.Spiranovic, Rukavytsya, Burns, Djite, Troisi, Kilkenny, Leijer all should've been in the system somewhere throughout. Even Jamieson, Bouzanis or David Williams should've been in the set up.
What Pim did though was go with the tried and trusted approach. Rarely did he stray from it. The majority of our squad does pick itself but only as we've never really seen if the younger guys can step in. A lot of them would not have made the final squad but it's about the long term, developing an international squad never takes a break, sadly Pim has neglected the younger guys. partly because of his conservative tactics, partly because his assistants have had too much to say (Graham Arnold's ego has prevented the likes of Burns, Djite and Kilkenny amongst others from being given a chance) and we're paying the price now.
For the FFA's part, Pim has achieved their goals. He was signed to steer us through Asia safely. He's done that, qualifying us for both this World Cup and next years Asian Cup. Other than that, Pim is far from a top manager and the writing was on the wall along time ago. Sadly for me, i'm not excited for this World Cup, to be honest i'm more excited at Pim's departure because only then will we begin to develop as a football nation once more.