Leave your A-League colours at the door
 for Australia

Spot on.........quality and entertainment and it is sadly lacking at present in the national side. Now combine that with an idiotic venue in ANZ in stadium and you really should not have to wonder why there might be a lack of support. ANZ was brilliant for Uraguay qualifier but honestly, it is a terrible place to watch smaller countries that do not attract large numbers. I refuse to go there and just switch off quickly irrespective of what special offers are on the table. The national team and the FFA seem to feel supporters are honourbound to get out and support the national side......we aren't and we need something in exchange and that is appropriate venues, a quality coach that plays attractive and good quality football.

I cringe any time I hear, “Aussie,Aussie Aussie,oi oi oi”. It had its day back at the 2000 Olympics, but now it needs to be muzzled for good.

I don't know about most hardcore football supporters, but I have and will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with other A-League fans for our national team. I had an absolute ball - despite the 2-2 result - with the predominantly Wanderers fans at the front of the active area at ANZ recently. I couldn't give a rats rear end who is in the group, if you're there for the Socceroos, that's all that matters. If you're not there for them, why waste your money and time?

Although the style of Holger's Football is cringe worthy, I think that the main reason that the crowds have been so low is the fact that games are played at ANZ/Etihad stadium rather than SFS/Aami Park. Imagine if The Cove and RRB were able to team up to replicate the A-League atmosphere at the SFS!

Score!

Let's never use Olympic Stadium again.

Great work, benched. Good luck.

While they have perhaps branched out a tad too much in certain areas, I did appreciate being able to book trips to countries I barely knew anything about via a group that had done some research and was able to ensure I'd be grouped up with heaps of other Australian football fans, thereby meet new people in the football fraternity We have to remember we have only just moved into playing semi-regular WCQ's and ACQ's since moving out of Oceania, this isn't like European teams or other confederations where countries have been playing achother for decades, this is a completely new scenario for the Australian sporting system let alone the football fraternity, so I don't mind some of the basic core functions like arranging a group hotel/hostel, I recall in Thailand for the 2007 Asian Cup we were able to all watch some of the other matches in the lobby etc

The FFA can't do it on their own even if they wanted to - there's ticketing, sponsors, security, fan groups and so on. The A-League clubs have developed their own fan culture over time and have sections of the stadium set aside for fan groups like the Cove and they are priced separately. Not sure how the FFA is going to set aside parts of the stadiums, issue different tickets for "active fans" and exclude others, get the pricing right etc in such a short time frame. The fan groups are even talking about getting rid of the name "Socceroos" because of the throwback to the old soccer term and just saying "we are football - we are Australia", but given the commercial backing and sponsorship of the "Qantas Socceroos" not sure how they can make it happen.

Holger's record is pretty bad, even if you compare it to Pim. These next few weeks are crucial and not qualifying would be a huge blow for the FFA and football in this country and a big win for the enemies of reason. I think you get 10M USD just for qualifying.

Thanks Ballymore, but I think if we had already qualified then less people would turn up to the next two games, particularly on a cold Sydney night around origin time. With our backs to the wall, people might care more and want to go to the game to cheer the Socceroos on. Its a bit late though to be organising the fans, it should have been done months ago.

"If we had already qualified with 2 games to spare would more people turn up or less?" i) I wouldn't turn up to a dead rubber ii) More people would turn up.

Very true. FFA are taking the 'small stadium at capacity' approach with WSW, I'd love to see the same with the NT.

A bit harsh on the GGA Fuss. IF it were not for the GGA i dont think i would have gone to Thailand for our first ever Asian Cup. Yes it was more expensive than doing all the leg work yourself, but it was the people you met, the trips to the stadiums as 1, living in the same hotel, bumping into each other at breakfast and so forth, i was completely surround by football talk and football people. everything was catered for. I must say, its the closest thing ive ever felt to representing my country in football ;0). They also did optional trips if you like in between days, but it was like being based in Sydney and doing a trip up to Gosford. Either way it still involved being around a bar with the Football on, just new surroundings. These guys were genuine Football people and totally opposite to those embarrassing fanatic dikheds. may i also suggest that the number 12 be given to Australis, and make it official FFA. We want nothing to do with Fanatics.

lol Gold

To be fair on that issue, (I started off sitting on the wing and moved into the active areas fwiw) Unlike Sydney where the Stadiums have tended to be more active fan friendly, eg in 2007 Urawa fans were allowed to bring large flags in so SFC could easily copy etc, and WSW fans have had no issues In Melbourne we had issues firstly with MOPT Trust (bit vague on that personally) in season 1 but Seasons 2 and most particularly seasons 3 at Docklands there was a big challenge in trying to get things like large o/s flags, banner space but perhaps most hilariously even a Drum was very difficult at the time and the club was quite complicit in all this for a long time The problem being is that there is a slight notion that more broadly while active fans want to facilitate football culture given they see it all as a football institution, there was some idea put forward by the Isings of this world that people should be able to support like AFL fans etc given the club is broad-based and a sporting institution more generally etc and add in the fact we were run by an ex-AFL President there is a strong defensiveness of the culture and a bit of suspicion on both sides given there is a slight conflict of vision. Wing fans get caught in the middle me thinks which in turn led to a strong 'pushback' which unfortunately, eg a generalist sports fan on the wing and even more specifically one who is naive enough to buy into or near an active area would mistake active areas for an area where all the "hooligans are" etc so this "looking down" issue you speak of goes both ways. Even worse is when these people get security because someone is standing in their seat involved who don't know any better Even more recently, especially when there is allocated seating there is conflict between the areas that border the active area and represent its expansion zone if you like and the seated areas, this is why GA makes sense and since the new MVFC admin introduced this the situtation has alleviated slightly because people are free to move about a bit more but it isn't as simple as saying it's stuck up snobbery as you are suggesting You have to remember - and this still occurs now - oppression of the active fans is always done in the name of making it safe for the so-called "family fans" who sit on the wing so there may be a bit of resentment mis-directed I suspect. This is all rather unfortunate in an ironic way because a lot of the fans and the kids ironically love the active areas and spend half their time watching those areas instead of the game

Just quietly I think you are mixing the Fanatics up with the GGArmy One thing I hink people are overlooking is the issue that the FFA chose to favour some generic sports bogan travel Agent (Fanatics) as their official partner for the 2006 and 2010 World Cup (I think) ahead of the GGArmy which was a football oriented fan group Whoever these new people are will have the same issues as the GGArmy, namely that we didn't play any meaningful gome games at all last year, so it is a matter of the "tyranny of time" as much as it is the tyranny of distance My experience of the GGArmy with the 2007 Asian Cup and the 2009 Japan WCQ as a hardcore fan was excellent, in Japan for example I an an MVFC fan ended up in the same hostel room as a fair few Sydney FC fans etc, but the colours were always "left at the door" so to speak, and I spent the week with a mix of Jets fans and fans from a number of other A-League clubs and all was well, as we were all there and all supported the A-League as hardcore football fans who could see the bigger picture Given they are together on a weekly basis, naturally the club support is always going to become higher quality than the national team who have to bring people together from a vast distances and only intermittently, then of course we have had ticketing issues in the past where there would always be clowns wanting to stand or sit quietly buying into an active area and not understanding what it was supposed to be about and dickhead security guards who weren't told any better either always taking their side etc

The lack of scrutiny of Holger's performance has been staggering. Frank Farina was criticised heavily for much less given that our NT was still playing quite entertaining football at times, despite being, shall we say, tactically naive. The cultural cringe is alive and well. Some coaches can develop teams progressively, sometimes after some initially difficult periods, but they eventually develop into a well-oiled unit. Osieck appears to be the opposite. I've read about some of his teams in the past, including Canada, where there was an initial period of inspiration (for Australia, Asian Cup 2011) but once the honeymoon period was over it just gradually fell apart to the point of becoming an irretrievable situation. Sadly, I think we're seeing the same here - our beloved NT is now a completely unwatchable shambolic rabble . I'd rather watch Wellington Phoenix.

Not sure if my memory is failing me (again), but I think it was the great Maradona who said that the SFS was one of the most intimidating stadiums he'd played at. Pretty significant praise if true.

The idea behind the active support for the national team was brought up at the football forums set up by the FFA. They realised that support for the national team was suffering and inversely support for the clubs at A-league level was going through the roof. Strange how people were invested more emotionally with their A-league club and not the national team. Its not to say people dont love following the national team, its just fell out of favour. Now the FFA made it clear when they held the forum that they are not going to be the drivers of the active support, thats up to the pundits. Its something everyone knows has suffered over the years and from what I have seen and heard its getting quite ridiculous. Any inter club rivalries you have you will need to check them at the door, just as the article has mentioned. Your going to be standing and chanting with all types of fans from all different clubs and the overriding theme is TO HELP GET THE BOYS TO BRAZIL.