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One day and 40 years ago, a group of no-frills Australian players took to the pitch for the country’s first World Cup match – a 2-0 defeat to East Germany.
A defeat on paper, a victory elsewhere. It took 56 minutes for the East Germans to take the lead, when Col Curran unfortunately turned the ball into his own net.
Until that point, the Socceroos – who were seemingly there to make up the numbers – had provided an unusual form of resistance. It wasn’t part of the script, this was meant to be easy for the hosts’ neighbours.
The Rale Rasic-coached side travelled to Europe for their first World Cup sojourn with no expectations and, seemingly, no chance. In many respects, the Socceroos’ opening match of the 2014 World Cup against Chile had parallels with the crop of green and gold that laid out the path for Australian football four decades earlier.
Indeed, a quote from Peter Wilson – 1974 alumni – is stitched inside the current Socceroos jersey, “We Socceroos can do the impossible.”
And they almost did on Saturday morning. Chile 3-1 Australia tells a different story to what really happened in Cuiaba.
14 minutes gone, 2-0 down. Shellshocked. Chile are good but not that good, surely? The 76 ensuing minutes were a shining light for the Socceroos.
Courage has become the most cumbersome cliche in Australian sport. It’s heavy in meaning and rarely justified. Enter a new cliche: proud. It’s the buzzword doing the rounds and deservedly so. These men aren’t soldiers, but they are a symbol of hope.
It may be a defeatist attitude to be content with a loss, but just try not feeling a sense of achievement in the Socceroos’ performance.
Hindsight is a lovely tool employed by Australian football fans and it played a part here, too. Coach Ange Postecoglou admitted his charges suffered from a dose of stagefright.
“We probably gave them too much respect,” he said.
It is hopefully a valuable lesson learnt in the Socceroos dressing room.
Chile, Spain and Netherlands are often referred to as world class teams. So are Australia. We’re on international football’s biggest stage. The second rate mentality no longer fits.
Chile will certainly no longer think of Australia that way. They were pushed, scared. There was no response to the pace of Matthew Leckie down the right and Tommy Oar down the left. They planned for Tim Cahill, but still couldn’t stop him.
Just like in ’74, it was a win without any points. In an interview with FFA TV this week, then-coach Rasic said the match in Hamburg was a turning point as the Socceroos “won the public” with their determined display, prompting “apologies to the Kangaroos”.
Progressing to the knockout stage in Brazil seems an impossible task, but there is plenty to gain. The naysayers have come from home and abroad in the last few weeks, we were written off. But the fight against Chile has surely persuaded even the most stubborn of doubters.
Mile Jedinak and Mark Milligan were clinical, without dazzling. They did the job for the most part, a tough one at that. Mark Bresciano proved to be the missing link against Croatia.
The front three were phenomenal, Oar and Leckie put their markers to the sword and often fed tantalising deliveries to Cahill, who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.
Matthew Spiranovic and Alex Wilkinson had a tough start to the match, but the latter made amends with a spectacular goal-line clearance later on.
Then there is Mat Ryan, who didn’t deserve to have three goals put past him. He made a brilliant one-on-one save in the lead up to Chile’s third and had things covered for much of the match.
Postecoglou’s substitutions were all methodical and effective, with the gaffer surely full of hope heading into the blockbuster fixtures against the Netherlands and Spain.
Even the four-yearly football converts would have been impressed, and just like the men of ’74, this Socceroos squad has breathed a brilliant sense of belief into a nation.
I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody proud to be Australian.
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