Asunto: Ancient Australian XI

After trawling through years of Australian sokker matches, I have managed to find the players that still find they need to play at their local (although often overseas) club to make a living, always striving for one last opportunity to represent their country.
Once a living legend, many of whom came up through the ranks of the U21s, one of which played just one match for Australia, but all of whom did represent their country.

I present to you, the Ancient Australian XI (and a few subs to follow).

Unfortunately making a team out of this bunch is very difficult given there are 4 GKs and many of whom don't even remember with accuracy which position they played, but none the less, here we go. Every player debuted before 2014 but many debuted long before then.

In order of Debut;

ATT Marco Croxall Age 55
MID Andy Willis Age 53
ATT Scott Stephenson Age 51
MID Jeffrey Erdogan Age 43
GK Andrew Elrich Age 42
MID Angus Lozanovski Age 42
DEF/MID Jade Graham Age 40
MID Fred Haliti Age 42
ATT Mason Giannakopoulos Age 41
GK Warren Galea Age 39
DEF Dale McManus Age 42
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Brent Moore Age 40
Archer Munday Age 38
Robin Whitley Age 41
Vaughan Martin Age 35
Christian Bridge Age 39
Jeremy Prentice Age 38


(editado)

lol Croxall is still on TMPs books and hasn't played a match since 2012!! Sentimental methinks!

awesome work! I can still see many that played when I was the NT coach, like Corxall and Stephenson...and my club legend Andy Willis :-)

alos some from my 2nd spell...Haliti, Giannakopoulos..awesome:)

Looks like the Ancient XI are starting to drop.

Those that have disappeared to a far off island somewhere:
Jeffrey Erdogan
Angus Lozanovski
Jade Graham
Mason Giannakopoulos
Dale McManus
Brent Moore
Archer Munday
Christian Bridge

Dropping like flies

Croxall is finally gone, almost hit real retirement age
Elrich gone - Australia's best ever GK
Haliti gone
Whitley
Martin - don't really remember this guy, so no big deal :P

Those still here
Willis and played a game in march
Stephenson played this week
Galea still rating a respectable 36 as a 45yo

Just the 3 of the ancient XI (17 taking in to account subs) are left, and once they are gone, pretty much the era of Australia being great in Sokker goes with it.

Were we ever very good? I didn’t pay any attention to NATs in my early days... any recollection on how we ranked back in the golden days?

We managed to rank in the high 20's and low 30's for a number of years with Borkos and cometer at the helm.

The reason I remember this is party due to being able to have two teams in the champions league (and that's what you had to be around) and partly due to us trying to get in the higher drawing of groups, where it was a fail to not make it to the knockout stages of the world cup.

We did miss out on a number by a very small margin, and got through a number of times as well, but we were definitely batting well above our average.

It did help that there were some teams focused solely on training certain positions for the NT, and not just trying to see if they could get too, or win the A-League. I believe a couple of these teams may have even made the A-League when numbers started to drop, despite never trying to get there.

But in short, yes, we were good, especially relative to our user base.

The Ancient XI is down to last man standing....Andy Willis, age 74

The "NEW" Ancient XI squad is as follows


1. MID Andy Willis [2020216], age 74 (c)
2. MID Nicholas D'Alberto [28363888], age 52 (vc)
3. DEF Craig Butera [33961483], age 44
4. ATT Rob Alagich [34459705], Age 42
5. GK Bob McKay [35689879], Age 40
6. DEF Rory Farmer [34217055], Age 44
7. MID Patrick McColl [34830964], Age 42
8. MID Preston Hammond [35436374], Age 41
9. ATT Jim Judd [35591408], Age 39
10. MID Tom Ishida [35296889], Age 40
11. MID Evan Van Blerk [34662355], Age 40

All debuted in season 52 or before (Sept 2019)
(editado)

Comley ain't going anywhere (unless I quit or lose my team) so he'll join that list at some stage. You speak of these as ancients but most of them came through the system after I originally quit and were well finished their careers when I came back. Willis may be the only one I recognise in that set from my first stint at this game.

Take a look at the original Ancient team. Some big names for you there.

Bigger names yeah on that first post. I know and got to use several on that list but it's still not as big as ones I can remember who aren't in the game anymore. I swear this game needs something to acknowledge/remember greats of the game. Some kind of hall of fame or tracking for players who reach certain landmarks. To be deleted from existence upon sacking just seems cruel.

Do you use my database?