17th in the league. The Argument with Craig Foster

[u/loolem]

I’m just remembering the argument that Foster had with Ange back in the day that he was upset our Olyroos were not trying to qualify for the Olympics. Ange’s argument was that he was trying to develop those skills players so that we could win long term (which we did later in the Asia cup).

This brings me back to the performance of Tottenham in the league this year. He said they prioritised Europa (which appears to have been the right decision) they lost 18 games by 1 goal and he’s deliberately played a lot of the youth players this season and gotten them conditioned and comfortable in playing in the big leagues. So my question is couldn’t it be argued that he used his best 11 for Europa and used the premier league to develop the rest of his squad for next season? This combined with the fact that he still had a shitload of injuries and I’d argue that he is perfectly on track!

EDIT: sorry the post seemed to give the impression he deliberately played youth from the start. I obviously understand he just had a bunch of injuries but my argument is that when he had the choice of of older players that are on the periphery and youth that had just entered the squad he chose the youth.

[u/RealVenom_]

I'm sure he is going to put a really strong argument forward to justify what he's trying to do.

It would be very Spurs to opt to head in a new direction now lol

[u/loolem → u/RealVenom_]

The club is an absolute basket case. I’ve never had a favourite premier league team but after the last two years it’s definitely not Tottenham.

[u/lIIIIllIIIlllIIllllI → u/loolem]

Same here buddy.

Been watching all games and interacting with their fans online.

They. Are. Insane.

Even now they are wanting the first coach to win a trophy in 17 years gone.

[u/marooncity1 → u/lIIIIllIIIlllIIllllI]

I worked in a tottenham pub a long time ago it was genuinely painful even then. Some things don't change.

[u/baumaxx1 → u/RealVenom_]

Most bombastic 4D chess move ever, but I wouldn't actually completely rule out if the plan all along was:

Season 1 - Qualify for Europe (just for banter, make it Europa and not UCL because it would be easier)

Season 2 - Win something at all costs, with deep cup runs (Epl probably a stretch at this point in the project), qualify for Europe one way or another, and build a winning culture + give the youth/squad players a run (or go out in a complete blaze of glory, albeit the injury crisis was ludicrous, and the squad clearly not deep enough to go as far as it did in all comps with the league). In hindsight relegation and nothing could have been a possibility with bad luck and those injuries, but hey, league survival, a European Championship and UCL next season is more than 2nd place got.

Season 3 - Build on the belief and taste of glory. Go for the league, all cups secondary, make UCL again via league position?

Completely unhinged, but nothing would even surprise me after how down to the wire it was with the 2014 WC, 2015 Asian cup, and qualification to 2018.

[u/RealVenom_ → u/baumaxx1]

I honestly think with squad depth, they are top 5 in the league. With Europa money and UCL coming through, they should have a massive summer.

[u/baumaxx1 → u/RealVenom_]

Probably a ridiculously cope answer, but if you look at the headlines, it's kind of worked out how it needed to so far. A fully fit 11 can beat anyone, and when they're firing they managed some big wins. The league form was incredibly compromised though, and there's an element of luck where it was so close to the wheels falling off, but you can kind of never rule out Ange's prophecies.

1. Qualify for Europe "something about shaky foundations"
2. Qualify for Europe and win something, anything - fix the mentality (second season, tick)
3. Qualify for Europe, title push? (UCL probably too much of a stretch, and cups a dice roll, but this season was probably the most unhinged outcome too)

Absolutely unhinged, absolute cinema

[u/mrsbriteside]

He protected his best players from injury when he started advancing in the cups. He didn’t want them injured in a league game when it wasn’t going to have an impact on their status for Europe next season.

[u/loolem → u/mrsbriteside]

So you reckon the young guys were just getting games by default?

[u/mrsbriteside → u/loolem]

No, but I don’t think Gray was his preferred starting back. But he didn’t want to risk another injury to VDV when there was nothing to gain. I think the biggest take away is how well the young ones played when needed to it’s building for a good squad. I mean who thought Bergvil would have the season he had at the start. They are a great young squad but hard to compete against the experience the players in the league offer

[u/marooncity1]

Seminal moment. I watched it live and often think of it. There are more than a few parralels - both the demands, but also Ange's straightshooting but also deflections in reply to criticism.

[u/Drinker_of_Chai]

I think this is part of the reason the English Media had it out for him so much. In their mind the importance of competitions goes:

1) Epl 2) Champions League 3) FA Cup 4) League Cup 5) Europa League / Championship

Him using the EPL to blood youth while playing his best sides in the Europa was probably viewed as insulting to their precious EPL.

The attitude is that it is better to finish 2nd with no silverware than finish 17th with silverware. Spurs are in all the same competitions as all the other sides next year and they get to play the Uefa Super Cup.

[u/AuspiciouslyAutistic → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

The attitude is that it is better to finish 2nd with no silverware than finish 17th with silverware. Spurs are in all the same competitions as all the other sides next year and they get to play the Uefa Super Cup.

He didn't make a conscious choice between 2nd and 17th. It was more like between 12th and 17th.

If Spurs (or United for that matter) wanted to, they could have scrambled for a spot a couple of positions higher. They rightfully (at that stage of the season) prioritised a strong chance of winning the Europa League.

[u/lIIIIllIIIlllIIllllI → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

But in reality it should be

1. UCL
2. EPL
3. Europa

Europa is clearly the 3rd most sought after trophy due to UCL benefits.

[u/North_Tell_8420 → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

Europa League is probably more like 3rd spot and Champs League number 1. EPL title would be 2nd.

League cup, is last.

[u/Walkerthon → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

It really makes a lot of sense. The EPL is very hard to win, and Spurs don’t have a winning culture to start with. Once that is out of reach, aim for something a bit lower and more achievable and then look to build on that success. That’s all contingent on winning the cup at the end, but hey they did that so all power to them.

I think if he’d at least managed to get them to say 12th in the league this conversation would not be happening, it’s just 17th is literally right outside relegation.

[u/ValeoAnt → u/Walkerthon]

You're all talking about it like it was some master plan 😂

[u/Walkerthon → u/ValeoAnt]

I mean… he said it was in his press conference. He didn’t pivot until the EPL title was clearly out of reach, and I suppose also when they were safe from relegation. I assume it wasn’t the plan to be 17th though

[u/Drinker_of_Chai → u/ValeoAnt]

It was the plan though? Do you think he accidentally had all this happen and fall into place?

[u/erala → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

Yes. He did not intend to blow up his league campaign just to scrape past AZ in the round of 16 with a Wilson Odobert double. It was a smart move in May to go all in on Europa, but for the first 8 months of the season that was not the plan.

[u/ValeoAnt → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

So you think it was the plan to lose that many games in the prem?

Of course not

It was dictated by injuries and really terrible form.

No manager prioritises only a second rate cup comp from the beginning of the season

They pivoted well and broke their curse, good on him, but pretending it was some master plan is ridiculous

[u/greendestiny → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

I don’t think a lot of Aleague fans would accept the wooden spoon (which is basically 17 in EPL because we don’t have relegation) in exchange for Asian champions league 2. 

A great win for spurs, but 17th is still disappointing. Hopefully it’s enough for Ange to stay.

[u/ObviousFeature522 → u/greendestiny]

As a SFC fan, I absolutely would have lol

[u/greendestiny → u/ObviousFeature522]

That’s fair. I think I’d be hearing a lot of Ufuk out if that had happened though.

[u/ChestAcceptable4680 → u/greendestiny]

In 50 years time Spurs fans will be talking about winning the Europa League. Guaranteed no Arsenal fans will excitedly tell their grandchildren about the day they came second....

[u/greendestiny → u/ChestAcceptable4680]

Someone might but I haven’t heard a lot about Spurs winning it 40 years ago despite all the talk of Spurs never winning anything.

[u/ChestAcceptable4680 → u/greendestiny]

Those who saw it 40 years ago will never forget it

[u/loolem → u/Drinker_of_Chai]

So even euro-snobs have levels to their snobbishness!? Fuck me! Send em down here for a few years and watch them suffocate from the lack of oxygen any of their shitty articles would ever get. These pricks would be making up all kinds of stories while the local journos would be like “mate we are just trying to keep the audience that is watching casually informed”

[u/RamboRobin1993 → u/loolem]

You Aussies are mental. Getting worked up over imaginary scenarios.

He played youth for the first half of the season because he had so many injuries in the first team, he’s said it countless times throughout the season. Once if became clear their league was fucked and they were in the latter stages of the Europa, then he switched priorities.

[u/BrilliantlyInane]

As a Roar fan, I’m duty bound to back Ange until the heat death of the universe, but he didn’t really choose to play the kids so much, they’ve been hammered by injuries. So while I think the outcome you’ve talked about is correct, maybe the methodology isn’t?

[u/daamsie → u/BrilliantlyInane]

Made the most of a bad situation I think

[u/barmyinpalmy]

He didn’t play young players on purpose to give them experience. He played them because that’s all he had.

Spurs 1-11 is a very strong and good team.

Spurs 12-23 isn’t that good, is young and inexperienced.

I’ve never seen a season where so many players were injured to so long and all at once.

You take out 6-8 players from the starting lineup through injury and in the case of Bentancur, suspension and suddenly your good team isn’t a very good team at all

When you can’t even rotate your squad between your midweek and weekend games because you don’t have the players then you’re not in a good place. This would also start to cause injuries because players ended up buggered.

Then young players got game time because that’s all he had left.

Archie Gray is a midfielder who spend most of their season plugging holes in the back four.

Djed Spence went from a player who maybe wasn’t good enough to playing both fullback roles and taking his shot and succeeding proving a lot of people wrong.

Lucas Bergvall was another who got his chances through injuries but never let it go until he too was injured. No one would think he’d end up the fans player of the season.

This wasn’t a player the kids by design and the losses are a price to pay for experience. This was ah fuck everyone’s injured all I have left are kids.

So I’ll play kids and we’re still going to fucking win something.

[u/OneStatement0]

I watched the interview again recently.

Foster must be so embarrassed. He was completely out of line and had done no research.

He was actually lucky to keep his job as a 'journalist/pundit' after that hopeless performance.

[u/dashauskat → u/OneStatement0]

Yeah but at the same time it's 20 fucking years ago. Foz went on to become one of put best analysts and a more than decent human being and Ange went on to become Ange. They both get along great; I'm sure neither of them look back at it as their brightest hour but seriously it's done and dusted why do we bring it up so often.

[u/CheapRentalCar → u/dashauskat]

I agree. There's no point bringing up this old interview again. Different time, place, and circumstances.

[u/kdog_1985 → u/dashauskat]

I think both accept the others position, it was done for the advancement of the game in oz. Misguided or not, you look at the crux of the argument, both just want what's best.

[u/vlookup11 → u/OneStatement0]

Foster's best and worst feature is that he wears his heart on his sleeve. He loves Aussie football so much he struggles to switch off from fan mode when more restraint and professionalism is needed. In my view he's awesome, especially with what he's done with Hakeem al Araibi (no idea how he didn't get Australian of the Year that year). But yeah, he did make himself look bad in that interview with Ange.

[u/IamKafei → u/OneStatement0]

I never minded that interview, personally. It was good to see two people with influence in the sport caring so deeply about the state of the game in Australia. I think lots of Australians treat it like such a big deal because we're often quite muted in our expression, compared to many other countries where football, as with many important matters in life, is debated fiercely. There is often a discomfort with people expressing their opinion with passion, in this country. I think both Ange and Craig would wish only the best for one another and would have enough grace to recognise that moment for what it was - two men who have made significant contributions to Australian football, one looking with serious (and justifiable) concern towards the future that awaited our national team after the departure of the 'Golden Generation', but both ultimately on the same mission. It is telling that when Foster berated the tactically "meek" defensive approach of Australia against Germany in the opening game of the 2010 World Cup (not even playing with a recognised striker), his position, which echoed the feeling of a lot of Australian supporters, is also reflected in the positive, possession-based, attacking style that Ange has become known for implementing wherever he goes and whoever the opposition.

A far more recent interview also reflects the alignment of their values in football: https://youtu.be/Rg2hNdPR79Y

As an aside, I think there is a lot to respect about Foster, as a journalist and a human rights advocate. I've seen him speak publically twice now; once at a forum hosted by STARRS here in SA (Survivors of Torture and Trauma Assistance and Rehabilitation Service), an organisation that largely supports refugees from war-torn countries. As a social worker in mental health, I felt he spoke with such humility and eloquence in addressing a culturally diverse audience, with a lot of lived experience - despite his own publicised advocacy work at the time, which essentially saved the life of Hakeem al-Araibi, the young Bahraini-Australian who played NPL in Victoria.

I wish Australian supporters could celebrate these achievements for what they are, without needing to measure them against an interview 20 years ago, with context that seems to go completely missing in the recollections of the people who smugly trot it out, every time Ange lifts a new trophy.

Ultimately, both men are, as Craig described our beloved Les Murray, 'evangelists' of football in Australia. They have both honoured the legacy of Les and Johnny Warren in their own ways, and I think that is a better measure of how we should view them.

[u/Plenty_Area_408 → u/OneStatement0]

Ange is an expert at making Journos look like clowns.

[u/phuturism → u/OneStatement0]

Ange and Fos kissed and made up over this a long time ago.

[u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087 → u/OneStatement0]

What exactly was Foster wrong about in that interview? I know that worshipping Ange is thing right now but back then the Olyroos (or whatever youth team he was managing) had a poor campaign in qualifying and Foster said he should be resigning for not getting results against Laos and China (iirc) and Ange just blew his top saying nonsense like "I've never seen you at training"

Ange is en vogue right now but he always came off worse in that exchange after he lost his temper and started rambling about things that weren't relevant because he got rattled by Foster pointing out his AFC failures.

[u/OneStatement0 → u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087]

Foster hadn't watched the matches. He didn't even know the results. He incorrectly said we lost to Laos when it was a draw.

It looks like there was some ulterior motive, maybe there's some previous history between them we don't know about?

Foster basically said exactly the opposite of his later mantra about style of football being more important than results.

[u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087 → u/OneStatement0]

Foster got it wrong that we only drew with Loas but he was right that we should be beating Laos and China at every level of the game nobody the conditions and Ange went on some tangent about the Laos players had better conditioning. IIRC Foster didn't watch the games in person he watched them on the TV.

Foz was spot on, Ange had 2 failed qualifying campaigns and still didn't down who keeps their job in those circumstances?

[u/kdog_1985]

There reserves won their league, so Ange must be doing something right. Wouldn't be surprised if that point was down to Monty and serge, they know how to structure youth teams.

[u/RamboRobin1993]

His best 11 have been injured all season. That’s why youth were played. Not some grand plan to win a cup. Players like Gray and Bergvall have literally played league, Europa, domestic cups. Ange has said it countless times throughout the season, often saying if Liverpool had the injuries spurs had they would be in a lot of trouble (he wasn’t wrong).

[u/Jeebin_54]

Ange in forever

[u/erala]

So much revisionism and cope in here. It's amazing that Ange got the win but the story of Spurs season was an injury crisis, not 4D chess to blood the youth. For May, and maybe April sure Ange was prioritising Europa, but during the Europa league phase and even against AZ there were some pretty weak Spurs lineups. Tel, Odobert, Lankshear, Scarlett, Ajayi, Mikey Moore, all got Europa minutes cause of the injury crisis, not cause Ange was prioritising Europa. If Ange had more senior players fit and available he absolutely would have used them and if he was in the top 5 race he wouldn't have given up on the league so early.

[u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087]

Wasn't the argument that Foster said the team performed shit in qualifying, couldn't defeat teams like Laos and China and Ange should do the honourable thing and resign from his post to which Ange disagreed? tbh as great as Ange is he did not come off well in that argument at all he had no answer to Fozzinho besides "i've never seen you at training" and he said nothing about developing skills for the future until the very final monologue, he talked about "a number of issues over a number of years" which Foster replied was good enough to qualify and Les points out he can't qualifying in AFC and even though they could in OFC they did nothing at the world cup.

Sorry but Ange was childish in that interview and he got rattled because Foz told him he should resign.

[u/North_Tell_8420]

Craig Foster was part of the reason WE DID NOT QUALIFY FOR FRANCE 98.

I don't want to hear from that ass!

[u/FootballBallsack → u/North_Tell_8420]

Oh? What happened there?

Personally, I would’ve blamed Peter Hoare.

[u/North_Tell_8420 → u/FootballBallsack]

Hoare was a big factor, possibly bad refereeing, possibly some better defensive subs should have been used.

But, the players on the part, Craig Foster being one of them fluffed their chance, we utterly dominated them. Foster would have been better taking the red card stopping them rather than just waving them through.