Congratulations to the Socceroos and Ange Postecoglou, who united a nation – for one night at least – and belatedly booked a ticket to the World Cup in Russia after 22 gruelling games.
Having worked so hard to qualify, it would be a travesty not to see Postecoglou pacing the technical area with a trademark scowl on his face in Russia.
This is his team, and despite all the criticism about tinkering with formations and personnel, it’s a team that was good enough to take one of just 32 places on offer at the World Cup finals.
It’s not every day that countries like Italy, the Netherlands and Chile would do anything to trade places with Australia, and the significance of the Socceroos qualifying for a fourth successive World Cup shouldn’t be underestimated.
As we saw with New Zealand’s disappointing defeat to Peru in Lima, reaching the World Cup finals is much easier said than done.
But where does the game go from here, now that the hard slog of actually reaching Russia has finally been accomplished?
The first thing Football Federation Australia needs to do is sort out Postecoglou’s future.
David Gallop and Steven Lowy were quick to make themselves seen in the post-game celebrations, but maybe what they should have been concentrating on was patching things up with Postecoglou instead.
That’s because there’s not going to be a better coaching alternative available who understands the Australian game and is willing to take charge at reasonably short notice.
And Postecoglou himself would do well to remember what’s at stake here.
He may well have already lined up a club gig in Europe, but then he may also never get another chance to do exactly what he said he would do – namely turn the Socceroos from a team just happy to be at the tournament into a genuine World Cup force.
The FFA should also strike while the iron is hot and line up a big name European nation to take on in Australia’s pre-World Cup farewell friendly.
England has already announced it will play both Italy and the Netherlands in World Cup warm-up games, and they’re the pedigree of opponent the FFA should be looking to entice to Australia – not just to give the Socceroos a decent test, but also to help replenish the coffers through ticket sales.
To that end, the $10 million cheque FIFA will hand over to the FFA just for qualifying for the finals should help a governing body said to be running worryingly low on cash.
Where on earth does all the money generated by football in Australia go?
That’s a question all ten A-League clubs have been asking for quite some time now.
Their mood won’t have been helped by the astonishing news that Western Sydney’s clash with Wellington Phoenix at Spotless Stadium on Saturday afternoon has been postponed.
A press release which landed in inboxes at 5:30pm yesterday afternoon blamed the postponement on the failure of the stadium’s grass to grow – seriously! – but as some Wanderers fans pointed out on Twitter following the shock announcement, Spotless Stadium is also set to host a music festival next week which will reputedly take a week to set up.
And herein lies one of the biggest problems facing the game today.
It’s not just that A-League clubs are forced to play out of multi-purpose venues – and are consistently treated as second-class citizens for the privilege – it’s the fact that very few in the Australian game seem to have the right connections and requisite gravitas to stand up for the sport.
Postecoglou has it, yet he’s just spent the better part of two years at war with his own employers for daring to speak out of turn.
The FFA Congress on November 30 may ultimately separate the wheat from the chaff.
‘Normalisation’ is something many are hoping for, but right now we’d all simply settle for a little bit of momentum.
KJ
Roar Rookie
Also, have the Matildas ever had a home and away crunch qualifier with such a significant distance and such a short turnaround? I am a massive fan of promoting the women's game and creating equality as much as possible, understanding the constraints identified above, however this flight is a very rare situation for both the men and the women.
j,binnie
Guest
Cousin Claudio- This article you cite must have been written by a journalist too lazy to take off his socks and give himself the ability to count beyond 10. The HAL is now in it's 12 th year of operation.There are numerous players in this current Socceroo squad who are in the 24/25/26 age bracket meaning that when the HAL started in 2005 they were probably playing junior football in 12/13/14 age brackets. Surely this makes it awfully obvious that most player who have progressed to Socceroo level would have played in the HAL at some time in their progressing career Cheers jb.
LuckyEddie
Guest
And remember most of the bottom feeders are not even football people, most are into football for the overseas trips.
Mitcher
Guest
Why would you even wonder that. Of course they wouldn’t. Pretty fair and logical explanation from the commenter above.
j,binnie
Guest
Fadida - That is the way WE play, 20 passes to create 1 chance. Now to your "sometimes 5" ending., Many years ago a Russian coach expounded the theory that if a team was playing good football and every man doing what he should do, the ball could be carried from a goalkeeper's pass out to a central striker being able to have a shot at gold in 5 movements of the ball.. This was an intriguing thought which if you think about is actually quite feasible. Goalkeeper to fullback,fullback to midfielder, midfielder to winger, winger to central striker , That's 4 passes which if moved forward speedily,, and accurately, would only have the ball travelling about 80 metres,so, demanding 4 x 20 metre passes, not a "long ball" by anyone's standards... Now although we seldom see this happening, mainly due to a misplaced pass, or a lazy player refusing to find working space, the theory has actually become the underlying ,ultimate aim, of every coaching manual. As I said, think about it for a moment. Cheers jb.
Cool N Cold
Guest
The response to the question is no. That means soccer fans do not attend or watch rugby matches usually. Then, if the usual soccer attending fans do not go to soccer matches, where do they go? Gardening. Drink in pubs. That is to say the soccer matches are not good enough. Is this the case?
Grobbelaar
Roar Guru
Good question. No.
Fadida
Guest
Has to be possession with a purpose jb. Sometimes that means 20 passes to create a chance, sometimes 5.
j,binnie
Guest
Punter - Possession football has two main aims based on pretty understandable ideas. (1) If your team has possession the other team can't score goals. That is obvious. (2) To score goals (the aim of the game) your team first has to get possession and then add "finishing". So what is the difference between "possession football" and "penetration football"? Penetration is achieved by the sum of those two reasons above. Firstly, having got possession from an opponent, the quicker a team can get to the opponents goal area and then attempt a "finish" , is necessary, before the opponent has time to reorganise into what could be termed a "defensive structure". Over the years (dare I suggest 1926) it has been found that the "safest" way to do this is through fast accurate movement of man and ball, cutting down the chances of either "manual" or "accidental" intervention by the opponent , and resulting in a successful attempt at goal. The debate rages around whether "beautiful football" is played by "holding possession for possession's sake" or is it "getting the ball from one end to another as fast as possible resulting in an attempt at goal.". Leave it to you. Cheers jb.
j,binnie
Guest
Nem - 1988 - Argentine won World Cup:(1986) 1991- Germany won World Cup (1990):,, 1993- Brazil won World Cup (1994). The point you are trying to make????? Cheers jb.
Realfootball
Guest
Or to put it another way, as the rugby league practical joke affected football? World Cup. Yeah, right.
Nemesis
Guest
Doubt it. Unless AUS is playing the TV numbers are pretty dismal on FTA Tv. And the attendance for AUS playing a RLWC match in Canberra was awful. AUS vs France in Canberra (12.3k) was a smaller crowd than Korea Republic vs Oman in the 2015 Asian Cup (12.6k). If AUS played a Fifa WC Finals Group match against France, the stadium would be bursting & the ratings would exceed any TV ratings ever recorded in the history of Australian TV.
Cool N Cold
Guest
Has the current 2017 Rugby League World Cup made the soccer attendance number down?
Realfootball
Guest
As you say, Mike, November 30th is crucial. Unless substantive changes are made to A League governance, and an expansion plan implemented, this season will continue the decline in the competition we are seeing now. So much of this discussion could be lifted from previous years. There is no doubt in my mind that the A League is in trouble, and the metrics are clear. Falling attendance, disappointing ratings. The League MUST be separated from FFA, as the Crawford Report stipulated. It is the only way to attract capital to a seriously uncapitalised competition. There is no other way. It is unthinkable that the current status quo should remain. The game needs new leadership and new ideas. The end of November cannot come fast enough.
LuckyEddie
Guest
But apart from a few days of publicity football will now drop off the media radar until 3 games in Russia sometime next year. In the meantime HAL crowds are slipping and there is little or no marketing of our bread and butter league. Roars crowd last night against high profile opposition was poor and that was only days after the new 'momentum' of WC qualification. Sydney had a big one off crowd for the WC game but it will be interesting if any of this translates to a bigger SFC crowd. It's great that we made the WC but we also have made a few other recent ones but there was no momentum that flowed in either bigger crowds or media coverage. It's a case of all the eggs in the WC basket while HAL flounders. You just cannot expect momentum by solely relying on an event that takes place every four years and that we have no chance of winning. The hard work for the FFA are things like, better stadiums, better scheduling of games, better playing surface, food and drink at reasonable prices, better care of juniors and associated fees and better marketing. The FFA seem to think that a FOX deal once every 5 years and WC qualification every 4 years is the tonic but avoid the hard day to day running of the game. I hope I am wrong but crowds at CCM and Roar after the qualification were terrible so the FOX and WC may not be the magic bullet after all.
Fadida
Guest
There's another book coming, that much is certain
Fadida
Guest
He continually says how thick his skin his. Surely Slater and Bosnich couldn't penetrate it? Show me one example where they have criticised his playing career, or tried to use that as a stick to beat him with...
Fadida
Guest
Would the Matildas get $10 million for making their WC? FFA are investing
punter
Guest
Never thought we were far apart, just different thinking on how Ange is performing, although most of your criticism I see justified, it's just the positives are a little misplaced. I'm a believer in constructive criticism, not criticism for the sake of it, we have many AFL supporters coming on doing that we don't need to do it ourselves. Many 'football' fans on here only like to criticise. As Foz said, it's great to debate on formations, selections, playing styles (mixing it up, possession, direct), but it would be a debacle to go away from the possession football we are currently trying to play. Being at the game on Wed night, the amount fans another backward pass or screaming out 'the goal is that way' shows many are still wanting the more direct route.
Midfielder
Guest
LOL