Australia's Scott McDonald and Iraq's Haidar Hussain during the Australian Socceroos v Iraq World Cup qualifier. AAP Image/Dave Hunt
After copping a rather abrasive razzing for my last article, I thought I’d throw myself into some positive light amongst our footballing community by acknowledging that the Socceroos – and football itself – have been our best achieving national sporting team this year.
In fact, football in general has had a good year: Socceroos qualify for the World Cup, A-League expansion has been semi successful, and some big names have come Down Under to play.
Contrast this to the recent results of our rugby team in the Tri-Nations (so painful to watch), our cricket team losing the Ashes dismally (and the Poms taking bragging rights, no one enjoys that) and the probable loss of the Twenty20 games ahead, and our NRL with nothing but bad publicity from Inglis and M. Johns, amongst others.
These are the main sports in Australia, with the exception of AFL, who don’t really have a national side to discuss, so I’d say that us footballers have taken some much needed bragging rights away from the other football codes.
Is this really so surprising though?
Football is seen as the family sport in Australia. I remember Mel from sunrise giving our Socceroos a huge wrap on morning television about how good role models the likes of Cahill are, and that NRL should be implored to fix it’s bad public image when it comes to drugs, alcohol and women.
The first step to winning internationally is conquering the domestic market.
Football has already done this in relation to public approval, with almost no bad publicity, minus Cornthwaite’s alleged assault recently and the sex scandal a while back involving Sebastian Ryall.
I think we can even achieve a perfect year if crowd figures for A-League pick up and NQ Fury can achieve a respectable finish (sixth upwards).
Fingers crossed that this year, and next, will mark a period of sustained growth for football in Australia.
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Even though St.Pauli ultimately lost a high-scoring affair, Jackson Irvine was a standout, as well as scoring a late goal.
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?
A good performance from Michael Ruhs, scoring twice to beat Macarthur and doubling his season goal tally in the process.
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