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Did Neill deserve to be booed in Sydney?

21st November, 2013
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Should Lucas Neill be on the plane to Brazil? AFP PHOTO / FRANCK FIFE
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21st November, 2013
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The one-time golden boy of Australian football cannot seem to take a trick. No sooner has Lucas Neill shaken off claims he might be overlooked by Ange Postecoglou, then the Socceroos skipper lands himself in hot water again.

“Why are you booing?” Neill politely enquired of fans at the Sydney Football Stadium on Tuesday night – if you ignore the expletive and angry gesture which accompanied his spur-of-the-moment remonstration.

According to the Omiya Ardija defender, he’d been copping it from sections of the crowd all night in Australia’s otherwise positive 1-0 win over Costa Rica.

“I’m an Australian, coming to Australia, playing for Australia and to be booed by Australians… it’s unacceptable,” said Neill of his unexpected outburst.

It was hard not to feel a bit of sympathy for the embattled Socceroos skipper, who after several shaky performances in a green and gold jersey looked to be headed for the same exit door as deposed former coach Holger Osieck.

But if Neill really wants to know why fans are booing him, perhaps he needs to look back at the many stage-managed interviews he’s given recently to figure it out.

Strong, good looking and incredibly wealthy, the two-time World Cup representative seems to be a graduate of the Michael Clarke school of image management.

A poster boy for the ‘me generation,’ it’s hard to know whether he’s talking about what’s best for the team or what’s best for Team Neill when he starts delivering his usual post-game platitudes.

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There’s no other way to describe it, but often Neill comes as across as being supremely arrogant – a player more enamoured with talking up his skills than putting them into practice out on the pitch.

So is that reason enough to boo him? Or should the fact that he’s still the Australian captain, for the time being at least, afford him an added degree of respect?

The comparison with Australia’s cricket captain Clarke is perhaps apt, because despite being his country’s most talented player by a country mile, Clarke has nevertheless endured a fractious relationship with the Australian public.

At first it was labelled a Generation Y problem, but though Clarke has worked hard at constructing a decidedly earnest media persona, it’s clear he simply does not get along with several of his team-mates.

Likewise, Neill is a player for whom captaining Australia clearly means a lot. But has the focus on leading his country come at the expense of his form?

And is it ever right to jeer a player wearing national team colours?

There has long been an expectation from large swathes of the Socceroos – culminating in Harry Kewell’s “youse are all supposed to be here supporting us” line to journalists at the 2010 World Cup – that public support for the national team should be both intrinsic and unwavering.

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What that fails to take into account is the fact that football is, at its very core, part of the entertainment business.

And when fans feel they are being short-changed, they’re liable to let players know.

Neill has made himself highly visible at a time when entertainment has been minimal and results less than crash hot.

Is it any wonder then that some fans, who may or may not have had a skinful of watered-down beer in the stands, might choose to vocalise their feelings in the form of some old-fashioned jeers?

It doesn’t help that the game was once again played in Sydney when, as regular Roar contributor Ben from Phnom Penh pointed out, the rest of the country is crying out for some Socceroos games.

If Football Federation Australia wanted to engender some unwavering loyalty, they could start by taking a few national team games to cities that haven’t already seen it all before.

Is it wrong that Neill was booed on Tuesday night though, or is it simply a reflection of the times we live in?

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