Socceroos built an identity in minutes

We have lost. That is the reality. That is the result. Football is about the result. It is also about celebration. But it is the result that goes in to the books, so that people can point to it and say, “you see that, we did that”.

What we did was lose 4-0 to Germany.

Germany is a massive nation. After losing two consecutive World Wars, they decided to turn more effort towards football. Many people were happy at that result, though one wonders if the English might have preferred they stuck with the former, especially as they were well ahead in the series.

We cannot dwell. Perhaps we dwell too much. John Aloisi’s penalty kick is a beautiful moment in Australian sporting history, but it is history. The 3-1 score line against Japan was again one of our finest moments, but it is also gone.

Our Gallipoli mentality also means that we hang on to our game against Italy as well. Joy and pride is found in these small moments. When we lost four goals to Germany, there was a massive sense of dejection. Les Murray described Verbeek’s team selection for that match as a work of “science fiction”; implying that only a perverted nerd could come up with something so awful. Probably harsh. None of Kevin Sheedy’s martians were selected, nor was Israel Folau named on the bench.

The reality is at the last World Cup, we played 360 minutes of football, and we led for seven minutes of them. It was of course, a vital seven minutes, but still not a significant amount of time. This is not to say that it was a lowly achievement. The world game is the hardest to make an impact on, simply because at some stage, nearly everyone kicks a ball, whereas, not everyone attempts to take screaming hangers.

Of course, the great irony of this is that it is now when support must be shown. When it is truly difficult to support your country, because a man who looks like one of the old blokes from the muppets has selected a team. A team that might well prompt the response: “Its not half bad, its all bad!”

Football is an expression as much as a game. We see that time and time again. What are seen as national values are played out on the field. The Germans are organised. The English are average. The Argentinians are criminals. Australians are…?

Let us find out.