Socceroos need more time - Daily Telegraph

[admin]

THE man who knows exactly how many kilos Mark Viduka will shed against Iraq and how much Harry Kewell will perspire has warned Australia fans not to expect a "brilliant performance" in the vital Asian Cup game.

Pragmatic Socceroos team doctor Peter Brukner says the players will not even be at their best come the Asian Cup final on July 29, if they make it.

Brukner says it is unrealistic to expect the players to be firing after a two-week pre-season.

"We were never going to play well in the first game and we're not going to play brilliantly either I don't think, it's a gradual process," he said.

"Both the way they cope with heat and general skill level will be better, but we won't suddenly be at World Cup standard - it won't be 90 minutes of hard running and flowing football.

"Guys like Viduka take a long time to get going. If we can just hang in there and get through these first few games, by the time we play in the semi and the final - if we get there - we'll be right.

"The majority probably won't be at their best even by the time the final comes, you just can't go from nothing to full conditioning in four weeks."

Brukner estimates that the players' fitness levels are at around 75 per cent, with the view of reaching 90 per cent by the pointy end.

He said the medical and sports science team, which weighs players five times a day, were expecting players to lose 3-4kg and that did not affect their performances significantly against Oman.

"A bigger problem is they just haven't played enough football," Brukner said. "OK, we weren't super fit but too much has been made of the fact we weren't acclimatised or not hydrated well enough.

"The biggest issue for me was our skills. We kept giving the ball away. They're just rusty and as an AFL person I liken it to the first round of the NAB Cup.

"Kewell hadn't played a full game for 11 months, Tim Cahill hadn't played at all for four months and the other guys hadn't played for six to eight weeks apart from the Singapore game.

"While it's not excusing a fairly ordinary performance, there are probably some pretty good reasons.

"There were time limitations which are beyond their control. They had to have a break, they hadn't had a break for three years."

[Judge Judy]

they aren't going from nothing, they've just played a season then had a couple of weeks off, so what's he on about 'coming from nothing'?

[Rodger-k]

I think its more like a month or 6 weeks off for some of them........but lets wait and see how they perform tonight.

Never having played in any sort of humidity I really don't know just how tough it would be, but I do know that on some days over here in summer just walking the streets is hard yakka and the humidity level is no where near what it would be in Thailand

[Missing Post Count]

Playing in humidity would be tough, but all the teams are in the same boat in that regard and the weather cannot be used as an excuse for under performing