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In the last week we have seen three of the biggest European football teams grace our shores to play friendly matches against our own A-League teams.
Villarreal, Tottenham and Chelsea have given local crowds a close look at some of the best talent in world football. Not only has their visit given many Australians the once in a lifetime opportunity to see European-quality football, it has also proven that the stature of Australian football is well and truly growing among its domestic counterparts.
With Chelsea and Spurs only managing 1-0 wins over Sydney FC, and Villarreal scraping past Adelaide and going down to Brisbane, the A-League can hold its head high for attracting – and also pushing to the limit – these quality teams.
I was lucky enough to be in the 83,598 strong crowd cheering on Chelsea and making paper planes from the bleachers last Tuesday, and it was truly an experience to behold. Not only were the Premier League champions, crowned just over a week before, playing at ANZ Stadium, but ‘The Special One’ was in our presence as well.
To see players like Eden Hazard, Diego Costa and John Terry barely 10 rows in front of us was an experience to behold, especially Hazard whose fleet of foot and ability on the ball showed why he was crowned the PFA Player of the Year.
While the quality of the game was understandably lower than that of the Premier League, mainly because of having jet-lagged players who were without rest for 11 months, it was highly entertaining and a fantastic performance by Sydney FC. For players like Terry Antonis, Alex Gersbach and Vedran Janjetovic to be competing with some of the best players, and be singled out by arguably the greatest manager in the in the world, is a fantastic sign for the future of the A-League and will ensure that teams of this calibre will continue to travel to Australia.
We won’t have to wait too long for European teams to visit Down Under again, with arguably the biggest team in the world, Real Madrid, playing a round robin tournament with AS Roma and Manchester City, as well as Liverpool visiting Brisbane and Adelaide after their successful MCG visit last year that made worldwide headlines.
Not only does it give the local economy a boost by enticing tourists to visit for these massive events, but it shows that football (or as most non-purists in this country call it soccer) is slowly winning over the nation. David Gallop’s introduction into the FFA has seen the code go from strength to strength, while others such as NRL and AFL have been caught up in a myriad of off-field dramas.
Furthermore, the allure of a higher pinnacle in the sport keeps fans more interested and engaged in the sport when it is not going on domestically. We have record numbers viewing the Premier League and other European Leagues as early as 3am on Sunday and Monday mornings.
While popular in Australia, AFL and NRL don’t quite have the international allure of football, and the FFA is finally starting to appreciate and exploit this, by enticing these massive teams to our shore.
The A-League grand final was once again a ‘Big Blue’ with Melbourne Victory taking the chocolates over Sydney FC in a pretty one-sided affair that was a fitting climax to the competition’s 10th season. The low point was that it was forced to be played at AAMI stadium, which don’t get me wrong, is a fantastic stadium for football, but with a capacity of just over 30,000 it is nowhere near large enough for a grand final.
That same day, Western Bulldogs played Fremantle over at Etihad Stadium, the location the Final probably would have been played at. This AFL match, featuring the only undefeated team in the league and a promising, up-and-coming Bulldogs side, only got a crowd of 18,170, with a capacity of nearly three times that.
Even in schools nowadays, football is outgrowing popular sports like rugby union. In the NSW GPS, rugby union used to dominate the numbers with teams going down to the ninths in Opens, and Es and Fs in most age groups, but now many schools are lucky to fill a fifths.
Football (yes, soccer) goes down to ninths and in some cases even tenths now.
While the quality of football in Australia is growing, it is European football that is to congratulate for the atmospherical rise of the sport in Australia. Our large multicultural background means that football’s stance as the World Game is reflected here, and will only continue to grow.
If the likes of Eden Hazard and Cristiano Ronaldo continue to play in front of sold out crowds at ANZ Stadium and the MCG, while NRL and AFL can only fill a game once their grand final comes around, football’s dominance will be here to stay.
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