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Despite the current financial situation, Australian soccer is in the midst of a huge bull market. Adelaide United qualifying for the final of the Asian Champions League is the icing of a very tasty cake.
Before the Socceroos moved to the Asian Confederation, they were irrelevant and too far away. So no one wanted to venture down under to play them.
The World Cup qualifying process was a sham and typically ended in heartache, while the domestic scene was a mess.
Fast forward to today.
The Socceroos have regular meaningful competition. They play in World Cup qualifiers, which mean something, and they can even afford one or two slip-ups along the way.
Because of the lengthy qualifying process, the team gets far more exposure than they ever had. Add in qualifying (and hopefully finals) matches for the Asian Cup, and it means national team games become a usual suspect on the sporting landscape, as opposed to the twice every four years occasion they used to be.
While the Socceroos have done well since the transition, the junior teams haven’t fared as well.
The Joeys (Under 16) recently missed out on a place in the U17 World Cup. The top four went through to the tournament in Nigeria, but the Aussies were eliminated courtesy of an UAE injury time goal.
This is the second straight time they have missed the World Cup – something which never happened when they were in Oceania.
The Young Socceroos are about to play in the AFC U-19 Championships with a place in the U20 World Cup going to the top four. They too missed out on qualifying for the last World Cup.
The only Australian men’s side to qualify for a FIFA tournament since the move to Asia is the Olyroos, and they didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory once they got to Beijing.
There is, of course, a huge irony to this.
Even though each of the FIFA youth tournaments is smaller than the World Cup, they allow direct qualification for a team from Oceania. And because of this, Australia had quite an impressive youth record while in the OFC.
But since the move to Asia, the Socceroos look like making it to the big dance without even breaking a sweat, while the juniors are struggling in their brave new world.
The Socceroos final two World Cup qualifiers, which will be a week apart in Sydney and Melbourne, should be a celebration with a carnival atmosphere as opposed to the finger-biting which we used to associate with them.
Until the broom was finally allowed to go through it, Australian domestic soccer was a mess.
The only time it made headlines was for the wrong reasons. The mainstream community had no connection with the ethnic clubs and the games didn’t mean anything.
Not so with the A-League, and especially not with the Asian Champions League.
There is no marketing formula as good as winning games and trophies. Who would have thought that something as amazing as this would have emerged from something as horrible as this?
As long as level heads remain, one can only see football in this country going from strength to strength. The success of the domestic game will feed into the international side and vice versa.
For a sport which was used to kicking own goal after own goal, it’s good to see it finally kick a few in the right direction.
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