Australians can't handle losing anything ever. It's an evolutionary trait from the days where if they lost they'd be hung or deported to a sun-baked wasteland.



Pffft. Fifa rankings mean little. Australia have yet to lift the Asian Cup.

Incorrect. We celebrate our gallant losers as much, if not more than our winners. This is the exact opposite of Britain, who scorns its losers in the tabloid press until they are ruined. It's like a sick game to you people. In Australia, Pat Rafter is loved more for his graciousness in defeat to Goran Ivanisevic at Wimbledon than he is for his two US Open victories. Compare that to Tim Henman, who despite a number of great runs at Wimbledon relative to his ability, is remembered only as the punchline of many a distasteful, mean-hearted english joke.



Yes well that's hardly a fair criteria given we've only competed in 2 of them. The rankings give a much better indication as to who are the better teams at a given point in time, and Australia are a significant 9 spaces further ahead and the top ranked team from Asia. They are also important because they reflect results against opponents outside of Asia.

yeah, seriously...The rankings take account of matches played over the past four years with the greatest weight given to matches in the previous 12 months, and most of this month's changes were due to teams discarding points relating to matches in March 2008 and depreciation of points from games in subsequent Marches. England, who lost to France in March 2008, have actually risen 11 points while dropping a place. Spain remain No1 but with 119 fewer points than they had last month.

America are 29 and Japan are 30...eh?

Don't confuse Britain with England. I firmly could not give a toss about the English National Football team or the ridiculous expectations of many of their supporters. I've supported the Netherlands since the Euro 2000. And Scotland, when they decide to make an appearance in international competitions.



Australia competed against Japan in the final of the 2011 AFC. They had a chance to win and become the champions of Asia. They lost. The rankings don't really reflect much on victories outside of Asia, given that the majority of Australia's victories in the past 12 months have been against Asian teams.

Anyway, we shall see what happens when Japan play Australia in their World Cup 2014 qualifying match in June.

Yes, so Japan were the best team in Asia in 2011.

Now in 2012 Australia is the best team in Asia. As there is no tournament we can only go by the rankings, which show a clear leader.

Generally, how much are football jerseys in England (or anywhere that isn't Australia, really)?

Seriously, you need to be selling coke in order to afford any jersey here.

Typically it's a less important duplicate organ like a kidney for one of the smaller clubs shirts. For bigger clubs like Manchester United or Chelsea you're looking at anywhere from your first born child to your soul.

like what? we do have high expectations of our athletes for example, because we compete so well in most sports, per capita we would be the best sporting nation in the world.we dont tear our sportsmen's guts out like the english and other presses do to their athletes,also you may or may not know that most of our population don't live in the Simpson desert, we live in a beautiful temperate climate mainly on the eastern seaboard, you should visit some day.

You won't find any EPL shirt in Australia for less than $150. After browsing online for 10 minutes I can see that shirts are almost always half that if you buy from anywhere else. God-damn ridiculous for someone who is out of coke.

even kids ELP shirts are ridiculously priced, my son asked me to buy him an Arsenal shirt and it was around $120-130.00 not much cheaper than the adults, its probably cheaper to order direct from the UK including shipping?

Bloody hell. I can get a personalised one from, say, Chelsea's own shop for about £45 and I thought that was pricey.



I would visit but for fear of being carried away by the herds of feral kangaroos that sweep across your desolate plains.

that is a risk of course, there's also deadly spiders, snakes, sharks, crocodiles, box jelly fish, bunyips, drop bears, yowie,
Yara-ma-yha-who, and Muldjewangk to contend with.

what a great performance from athletico today. hopefully this gives falcao a boost, he is one of the best strikers in europe without a doubt and there is little to no talk about him