The Socceroos are ranked sixteenth in the world. It’s hard to believe they are sitting one place above football pretty boys, Portugal, a team who are struggling to make South Africa next year, even with the best player in the world in their side.
One week derided by its own media and betrayed by infighting, the next achieving it’s highest ever FIFA ranking. The football gods curse one moment and bless the next.
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The Socceroos, you can almost say, are sitting at the big kiddies table of world football.
If you look closely, nearby are the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Greece and USA, all teams the Socceroos should not fear. A bit further up the table sit Croatia, Argentina and Netherlands, teams the Socceroos have drawn with, been competitive with or beaten.
A Football Odyssey 2010
It seems like this phrase “Next year will be Australian football biggest” has being said every year since 2005. Obviously, the two big dates are the World Cup in June and the decision by FIFA in December on who will host the World Cup in 2018/22.
It’s quite a difference to the phrase “This is Australian football’s last chance,” which used to be said every four years before the Socceroos would play a one-off home and away match to qualify for a World Cup.
As an Australian football fan, I have had nor the time or the inclination to follow the FIFA rankings.
Two reasons why:
The first that they don’t seem to be a true reflection of the ability of the team: like Eddie Vedder said at the MTV awards, how can you rate art?
The other reason is Australia never rated lower than 30, and usually hovered around the 50s, so if we were not number one who cares right?
Heavy Is the Crown
But now that the Socceroos are ranked sixteenth I’m starting to take notice. The good news for Australia if it can maintain that ranking through to the World Cup is that it will enjoy a high seeding, thus avoiding the likes of Brazil, Spain or Italy in its group.
This could prove to be a positioned chalice, a heavy crown, a cursed blessing, whatever grand metaphor you can think of to describe the added pressure of having success.
It is an unexpected bonus for Pim Verbeek the Socceroos, players and staff for how well they have performed during this World Cup qualifying campaign.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing or pretty to watch. To use a Damian Lovelock-ism, at times it was pure granite after all these years of being in the international football wilderness and only playing two real games every four years.
The football fan that hitched a ride on the Socceroos bandwagon after the Uruguay game or joined during the World Cup will have realised like other football fans that sometimes international football or even football in general can be mostly granite.
But just to be at the World Cup is worth it.
Australia now has World Cup history and will be humming the words to the Split Enz song History Never Repeats, hoping to progress to the Quarter-Finals in South Africa next year.
A goal that should not be out of the question.
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What if we celebrated all of the achievements big and small, and weeded out those hell-bent on bringing down a game that is doing a hell of a lot right?
