My article from last week, about replacing the World Cup with a World League, was mostly met with incredulous reaction and rightly so.
This is tampering with something that was financially successful as well as removing a competition with a rich history and diminishing the drama that a cup competition would entail.
I will admit that my previous article was a bit of sarcastic trolling from my part (although perhaps I should have put more wink wink moments in the article and be less enthusiastic about creating an elaborate system to replace it), but there was a point to all of that.
If determining who is the champion and the best team in the A-League by the final system was an example of a cheap contrived drama and a shameless money spinner, why can’t that criticism be level at the World Cup?
After all, it’s theoretically possible to win the World Cup without winning a single match, for example, a team can get out of the group stage without winning a single match, such as Italy in the 1982 World Cup, and then win the World Cup via penalty shootouts throughout the knockout stage.
If the purist believes that the final system should be scrapped despite the fact that a) it is financially popular and b) it is part of the history and culture of football in Australia as it was used in the NSL, then surely they would support the replacement of the World Cup with a league system and an international equivalent of a FA Cup competition.
That would be more theoretically meritorious in determining who is the best international team in the world as it would reward the most consistent team. Sides like the Mighty Magyars, who only lost one match between 1950 to 1956 (at the 1954 World Cup final), would have certainly benefited from the league system.
Also, the same people would probably be rejoicing whenever there is discussion to replace the UEFA Champions League with the European Super League, that has always been threatened by the big European clubs.
Sure, the World Cup never advertises itself as a league system and everyone knows that it is a cup competition, but the World Cup has always promoted itself as the premier international competition in determining who is the best international team in the world.
People who win the World Cup are known as the world champions and they get the prestige of being the best team in the world for that achievement. Similarly, the UEFA Champions League winners are known as the European champions and are celebrated as the premier European clubs. It shows that a cup competition can be a legitimate way in determining who is the greatest side in the world.
Of course, the A-League shouldn’t just be decided by a finals series just because the World Cup is decided that way. What system should be used should be based on its own merits and not based on conformity to what happens in other countries and competitions or conform to what other sports do in Australia.
The reason why I support the final series is because it’s based on the following principle: a true champion rises to the occasions and win the important matches.
A true champions isn’t just consistent but are able to win when everything is on the line. A true champions isn’t just the most talented team but a mentally tough team.
What better way to test the mental toughness and the ability to handle the pressure of an all or nothing match? Being consistent and then falling in the final is like dominating the heats but losing the finals. It shows the team lacks the mentality to win the matches that matter and that’s the advantage it has over a purely first past the post league system.
Of course, people point out that if the FFA Cup is implemented, this will make the finals series obsolete. However, I completely disagree because the FFA Cup lacks the pressure that a final series has.
Cup competitions around the world aren’t consider the premier competition that is the most important to win. Although players would love to win the FA Cup, they would prefer to win the league more.
Players from big clubs are often rested in early cup encounters and the attraction of the competition is the romance of having lower division clubs battling it out against the Premier League sides instead of a battle of who is the champion of the league.
The FA Cup can never emulate the pressure that a finals series entails because the finals series is a celebration of the elite and excellence, whilst the FA Cup is more of a celebration of participation from the grassroots to the elites.
However, despite my love of a cut-throat finals series, I would like to state that I don’t dislike the first past the post system and I love the importance that the A-League has on the premiers.
It adds tension to the league where people are battling for the first spot not because it gives you better seeding for the final series but because being first past the post system is an achievement in of itself.
In fact, I would support the premiers getting equal prize-money as the champions and I support both of them having equal prestige. There should be a natural ambiguity for who is the greatest side, the consistent premiers or the mentally tough champions and it’s something that people should continue debating.
It’s this ambiguity that makes the A-League unique and it makes it stand out from every other sport in Australia and from the majority of football leagues in the world.
The A-League has the best of both worlds and this is something that we should be proud of.
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