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The Socceroos are off to a third World Cup in a row and Australia is buzzing with fake congratulations from sportspeople representing other codes (maybe not all of them were feigned, but some were purely diplomatic) and fans who tagged along only as success became apparent.
There are only a few things worse than a plastic fan – Andy Harper’s similes, self-important WAGs and Manchester United shirts at Socceroos and A-League games all rate high on my annoyance meter – but even worse than these are the self-appointed sports experts crawling out of every gutter to have a go at the Socceroos and their chances at World Cup success.
“Congratulations on making it to Brazil 2014,” says one such person. “But you won’t win it,” continues the man with the obvious NRL-inspired username.
How many hours of expert analysis did you put in before you came up with that radical theory?
“On paper I think Argentina have just enough quality to get past Australia,” I can imagine him theorising in his high-tech sports lab.
Now I really hate to pull a Peter FitzSimons and pick out the dumbest comment from a set of supporters and choose that as fodder for a code war, but I’ve noticed more than a few people who really don’t get where we’re coming from as football supporters.
Football fans in Australia are passionate but not deluded; we all know our standing in world football, we know we’re not the greatest team in the world and we pale in comparison to superpowers like Italy, Argentina, Spain, hosts Brazil and more. Yet we continue to support our team.
Now this might be perplexing to your average league, Aussie Rules and union fans, all of whom are used to seeing the best teams in their respective codes right in their backyard (hell, even the largely trophyless Cronulla Sharks can claim to be in the top 20 rugby league clubs in the world).
Even at club level in football we’re nothing special. South Melbourne FC was voted greatest in Oceania, but that’s like being the smartest kid in year two. Our biggest A-League clubs struggle at a continental level and the majority of our players are bench fodder for Europe’s middle class of clubs, yet we still laud them as heroes.
We must be pretty mad to do that, you might be thinking, but it’s just the way we are. We don’t care if we’re not getting the best the world has to offer, but that makes us the most loyal fans a national team could wish for.
Time and time again we see the football faithful show up to ‘unwinnable’ games. Watch this space, I bet A-League All-Stars vs Man United and Melbourne Victory vs Liverpool will be sell-outs that make other codes’ grand finals look like second grade regional division.
Call us sadomasochists if you want, but we show up to games full of energy, even if in our hearts we won’t be surprised if we get whipped.
Your broken clock opinions won’t stop us from showing up or tuning in to the sport we love.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.