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.
Midfielder
Guest
Blame the Medication ...
drew777
Roar Pro
I'm not going to argue any points in this discussion, apart from one. Pim has taken the roos up the standings, qualified us again, and has been resilient against all criticism. He has proven himself through action, lets ease up on him now, ay? Joe - agree totally, we do have a lot more room for improvement :) quite exciting, really. Albe - I think domestically, we need to be able to sustain the expanded A-League before football is Aus really takes off, hence the conquering of the domestic market. After all, if the domestic market isn't strong enough in support for football, no WC will come down under. Ever.
Jack Pappas
Guest
Well, finally we can see the truth, wogball has finally made it, and redneck rugby and cricket have not, and mostly due to the uncivilized behaviors of the players and supporters involved. Australian society has had a major society issue with sports and tolerance, the socceroos whom have been blasted because of the ethnicity and culture of the game (family sport) deserves much more credit. JP
Joe FC
Guest
by all means let's be hopeful and acknowledge the gains made but that doesn't mean there is no room for improvement or that we shouldn't welcome constructive criticism.
Norm
Guest
you do plenty of back slapping for the afl pippy boy
Pippinu
Roar Guru
haven't I read this post already???
Midfielder
Guest
Pip See that lovely goal by Matty ..... well weighted bounce to Dylan... Sublime pass from Dylan to Matty ... Dylan sliding behind the defense to a forward pushing Matty ... Matty used delicate touch and silly skills to guide the ball into the net... ARRRRRRRRRRR winners can smile and lossers (PIP) can complain ... It has been a good year and the Socceroos if not already are the nations number one sporting team...
albe
Guest
things are improving and we're now more part of world football, both at club and national level. The key for me has been joining AFC. "The first step to winning internationally is conquering the domestic market." Not sure bout this... Conquering says we need to be the top sport in Oz. For me its more important to be a credible football nation internationally. The rest will follow, at least to the extent to which people here want to follow the game. I think this is a bit of a generational thing... there's some people that'll just never be won over to 'boring soccer' as they call it.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Bear if you had any self-respect - you'd be apologising to us all for giving it to Pim all year!! :)
The Bear
Guest
Don't mind Pip...Victory just lost Celiski, and possibly ACL credability. Suck it up, Princess.
The Bear
Guest
It's certainly been a great, if not solid, build up for some much needed national sporting morale. Beating the credit crunch, aside, Australians have a big gold star for our Socceroo's. South Africa should be a great release, next June.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
I'm not going to be as kind as the first two posters, because both this article and the responses are riddled with inconsistencies. Firstly, the claim has been made that it has been a stellar year (and for the Socceroos, that's definitely true, although even there have been fans keen to get stuck into Pim at various points) - but then we have posters saying that it's nice to have a positive article for a change? Surely in such a stellar year - there has been absolutely stacks of positive news!! Going up the rankings to 16 and then to 14 is about as positive as things can get!! Then within the article itself we get a good illusration of why it doesn't pay to point at the supposed degradation of other codes, adding one, then two and maybe more exceptions in relation to the squeaky clean image of the A-League, and it starts to sound a bit like that Monty Python sketch: What have the Romans ever done for us? Yeh, yeh, but besides all that, what have they ever done for us??!! On that same point, Cahill is menitoned as a fantastic role model, but in fact he is the one who has been involved in a number of transgressions (including his live dummy spit when an innocent party was trying to interview him post-game). Honestly, we don't need any of this back-slapping stuff.
cab711
Guest
Nice to see a positive article for a change.
Luke W
Guest
Nice positive article. One point however, and that is that if the A-League received the coverage/scrutiny that the NRL or AFL do the Ryall and Cornthwaite cases would be making the back pages. The football community got a glimpse of it when Tim Cahill was (in some minds) unfairly treated by the media for his involvement in a nightclub incident, purely because of his status.