Australia battled not just their opponents, but also the playing surface, when they played the United Arab Emirates in Sydney on Tuesday night.
It’s a familiar sight for devoted Socceroos fans, which means most of them stayed pretty quiet about it on social media. But for occasional passers-by it didn’t look good: clumps of grass torn out, a ball bobbling around, horrible first touches.
It would be fine if it was a one off. But, sadly, that’s not the case.
Since I came back from working as a football journalist for almost ten years in Europe, I can’t remember the last time that I saw the Aussies play at home where I have not raised an eyebrow at the playing surface.
I’m sure there have been some occasionally good pitches, but it is something that Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou regularly complains about – mostly he is absolutely justified in doing so.
The guy is sweating buckets, trying to get his players ready for arguably the most important sporting show on earth, the World Cup, and most of the time his players have to perform on a pitch that would not be accepted in most European third divisions, just to get there.
I know, I know … I can hear the arguments roaring down Anzac Parade already.
The first one is ‘these modern-day soccer prima donnas are spoilt and they should be able to play in any conditions’.
Um, no they shouldn’t. They are trying to get ready for a premium tournament in two years where facilities – thanks to Russian big spending – will no doubt be near on perfect. So why shouldn’t they play on something similar to what they can expect there? Does Jason Day get ready to play at Augusta National by putting in his backyard?
The second argument is the classic. ‘In Australia we have so many sporting codes, which all need to be balanced. The two rugby codes also share that pitch, as does the A-League. Everyone needs a fair bite of the cherry’, or something like that.
Okay, but everyone does realise that the A-League, as well as Super Rugby and rugby league are nowhere near as important internationally as World Cup qualifiers, right? We’ve all realised – even begrudgingly – by now that football is the biggest sport in the world, measured both economically and level of profile.
Why wouldn’t you want to give your national team the best possible chance of shining on that stage? Why wouldn’t you clear the calendar properly ahead of an important World Cup qualifier if you needed to play the game in a multi-purpose stadium? I’m not talking weeks, I’m talking potentially months.
Thirdly, we’ve had bad weather in Sydney, so it was tough to get the pitch ready.
Football, to the chagrin of many fans of the sport, is played in some of the wettest, coldest, glummest countries on the planet. Think Belgium, Germany – even England in the winter. They are hardly sunny and beach-loving, but football teams are still playing on well-manicured, natural grass.
With heat-lamps, rollable pitches, and very strict usage programs, these guys measure the blades of grass on their pitches before each game.
Come match day, the pitches are generally ready to go.
The reason why it all gets to me so much, this topic? I think it actually affects our standard of play, in a really tangible way. Take a closer look at last night’s game, for instance.
The Socceroos two goals went in off corners, no chance for the pitch to get involved there, thank god. Two of our better chances went sailing over the crossbar, despite the players getting into good field position and having time to line up the shot.
Was it a little bobble of the ball on the pitch, or was it technique? We may never know – but I’ll always have my suspicions it was the former.
Football is a sport that relies heavily on the quality of grass underfoot, if being played at the top level. If you don’t provide that, it is going to affect the style that we play, in the short- and long-term.
If we want to get better as a nation in football, authorities and the sporting leaders need to get serious about providing exclusive soccer grounds in the major cities, that can do justice to important games like this.
Of course, if we don’t want to get better, then every four years we can just stand around drinking our flat whites, complaining about our “quality” when the Socceroos don’t do as well as we hope at the big tournaments.
But remember, the problem starts at ground level.
Andre Leslie
Roar Guru
Thanks everyone for the comments... I can't answer all of them unfortunately! It's interesting this article has got the ball rolling on the issue of an exclusive soccer stadium for the national team.... not really my intention. For what it is worth, I don't think this is the answer... look at how much England and Germany have spent on their big centres, and it is a lot of blingy, show of dollars, but I'm not sure they were worth the investment. Sure... these are more training facilities, rather than playing venues, but it still takes the sport away from the public in an odd way, and the average football fan feels forgotten enough as it is. But, I love the idea of taking the game to more big regional centres, big towns and cities that will have less stress on their grounds. Gosford definitely comes to mind in NSW. I understand that this may clash with contracts already signed... but not every contract needs to be set in stone forever. I agree that building a 300 million dollar stadium at Circular Quay is probably a bridge too far, as well. ;-)
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
And I can't edit the horrid typos above. Dear Site Administrators, can you please take it upon yourselves to address the editing issue. At the very least remove the editing function if you desire the quality of grammar on this site to be reduced to text speak. Regards BoPP
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Sorry, Pauly, I didn't mean to make this a reply (I like the idea of Bluetongue), however the edit function on this site seems to have died a terribly death, one that I've alerted the moderators too with little result.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
If the only concern was a fantastic pitch the Socceroos would play each game out of Coopers Stadium. It transpires that the state of the pitch isn't the only concern. Hence the those calling for a football specific stadium had best address the other pressing criteria - such as financial returns, as we already have a football specific stadium.
Pauly
Guest
Better idea - FFA should just buy Central Coast Stadium, we can name it after John Hutchinson and it can be our "Wembley". Make a deal with NSW Trains to run extra services to Sydney and Newcastle every game day. The pitch will be brilliant and the backdrop spectacular.
Pauly
Guest
Their whingeing did extort free public transport for SEQ last weekend. You'd think free entry and people wouldn't mind paying for the train but AFLW fans must be a different kind of cheapskate.
Pauly
Guest
Keep in mind Nem that unlike the other rectangular grounds in Australia, AAMI Park's existence was driven by football and not a rugby code. Also keep in mind that the biggest tenant, Melbourne Victory, has a competing arrangement with Docklands Stadium so they have to keep the pitch in a good state. By contrast, Suncorp and Allianz know their tenants have no other choice and will continue to serve up rubbish. Will be interesting to see what happens with Parramatta Mark II.
Pauly
Guest
Though they still bitched and moaned when Adele was held at the Gabba...
Pauly
Guest
Waz, believe it or not Brisbane is actually further away from many Asian destinations than Sydney and Melbourne due to its easterly position.
Chris
Guest
Boz the point I was trying to make is that (here in Sydney) the fogies on the trust would never ever allow anything (concerts anyone?) days before a cricket test match. The mindset when it comes to football is that any old surface will do.
Doc Disnick
Roar Guru
Remind me again how many of these 'marquee' matches there are vs WC Qualifiers?
Nemesis
Guest
Indeed. Who would ever play the marquee match of the season in the same venue? Ridiculous.
Doc Disnick
Roar Guru
Awesome idea to grow a national game. Play ALL Qualifiers in a single location that a majority of Australians care little for. The best part is asking QANTAS to ferry everyone around — at discounted rates — in the 6th largest country in the world. This plan of course relies on a single person to fund a 40K seat stadium out of their own pocket. Just brilliant stuff today indeed.
MarkfromCroydon
Roar Pro
"However, football doesn’t generate enough revenue to justify building a football-specific stadium, and there is no justifiable reason why governments should pay for one". What a load of rot. Football has been massively underfunded for decades. There is a strong justification alone just to rederess the imbalance that has been going on. Regardless of that, football is the sport that has the most potential to grow in attendance and if you build proper stadia and 2 teams playing out of a football specific stadia in each major city, you will get value for the spend. Additionally, football has the most potential to draw overseas visitors and the tourist dollar. World and Asian cup qualifiers regularly draw in hundreds and sometimes thousands of tourists from our opponents (eg look at the last Japan game). there is also the ACL that has overseas visitors. it's about building the destination so that a Japanese fan wants to come to 'new Adelaide stadium" or wherever to see Gamba Osaka play against the reds. Not to mention that building football specific stadia will lessen the impact on the pitches of those stadia and potentially increase the quality of the games played on those pitches. Mate, if the Victorian Government can afford to spend $1 billion to NOT build a road, surely they can afford to spend $300-350 million on a 40-50k football stadia that will generate revenue.
Boz
Guest
The fact that the WACA, Adelaide Oval, MCG, SCG, Gabba and Bellreive Oval only share their facilities with one other sport, which doesn't play at the same time of year as Cricket!! Whereas the rectangular grounds can have up to 3 different codes playing on them at certain times of the year, with two of those codes being much harder on the surface than either Cricket or AFL would be. Honestly, you have compared apples with elephants if you think that Cricket and Football's situations are similar.
Chris
Guest
Both sports need pristine pitches to allow the players the best opportunities to show their skills. One sport gets afforded that luxury and one doesnt. What have I missed?
punter
Guest
No joke.
punter
Guest
You should have seen the AFL flap about when Ronaldo & Real Madrid took over the MCG in the middle of their season.
punter
Guest
Diversity, the way forward, Australia should lead the way.
Mickyo
Guest
What about fubar stadium ? That makes as much sense as your hero.