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Opinion

After a cracking weekend, it's time to celebrate football's feel-good stories

6th November, 2022
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6th November, 2022
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Kevin Muscat just won the J. League, Mitch Langerak is the best goalkeeper in Japan and Garang Kuol is going to the World Cup, so perhaps it’s time to admit our football is not so bad after all.

The biggest story in Australian football this week is not whether Cristian Volpato throws his lot in with the Socceroos or whether Jason Cummings is on the plane to Qatar, it’s former Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat winning the J. League in charge of Yokohama F. Marinos.

Let’s be honest – Muscat doesn’t get the plaudits he deserves as a coach because many fans believe he was once a dirty player, and because anyone who doesn’t support Melbourne Victory is loath to applaud an accomplishment from one of their former greats.

But after taking just six points from the first five games of the season, Muscat winning the J. League is one of the greatest success stories of our times.

Kevin Muscat

Kevin Muscat. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

And he did it in a league where Nagoya Grampus shot-stopper Mitch Langerak has been far and away the competition’s best goalkeeper for the past few seasons.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, it’ll be a relief to see the Socceroos squad announced on Tuesday morning just so we can put the ‘will he, won’t he’ saga surrounding Cristian Volpato to bed.

The Roma midfielder is a precocious talent and his attacking flair would be a welcome addition to a Socceroos squad lacking in creativity.

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But Volpato plays for Italy – or their underage sides, at least – and so far the Sydney-born midfielder has given no indication whatsoever that he wants to play for Australia.

If he chooses to watch the World Cup from his living room in Rome, so be it. Better to pick players who actually want to wear the green and gold.

But will one of those be Jason Cummings? The Scottish-born striker is one of the A-League Men’s stand-out talents and he brings a genuine X-factor to his Central Coast Mariners side.

The problem for Cummings is that Socceroos coach Graham Arnold tends to favour his incumbents – one of whom is a very different type of player to the Mariners man.

Adam Taggart wasn’t even in the Cerezo Osaka squad to face Nagoya Grampus on Saturday and the former Suwon Bluewings striker endured a patchy campaign at best in Japan.

Yet there’s no doubt Arnold rates Taggart’s physical presence, and with Mitch Duke almost certain to start up front in Australia’s World Cup opener against France, Taggart is likely to act as Duke’s understudy.

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With in-form Melbourne City striker Jamie Maclaren likely to nab the archetypal fox-in-the-box role, it would appear there’s no room left for Cummings – despite how popular he is with the fans on social media.

Cummings impressed once again in Central Coast’s 3-0 thumping of Western Sydney Wanderers on Saturday night, but it was Garang Kuol who sealed his seat on the plane to Doha with another virtuoso performance off the bench.

The 18-year-old plays with no fear and his latest eye-catching cameo was enough to ensure his name will be read out on Tuesday.

Mitchell Langerak (Photo by Masashi Hara/Getty Images)

It was an unhappy night for Marko Rudan and his Wanderers side – whose only consolation was the fact Sydney FC were likewise thumped 3-1 by Brisbane Roar heading into the Sydney Derby.

The Sky Blues walked straight into an ambush in Redcliffe as they deservedly found themselves two goals down inside the opening 12 minutes on Sunday afternoon.

Quite why they were so surprised by the Roar’s intensity remains a mystery, but the reality is Warren Moon’s team is nowhere near as bad as many would have you believe.

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That’s true of much in Australian football – although the less said about broadcaster Paramount’s diabolical weekend, the better – and quite frankly those who are paid to administer the game have allowed negative narratives to dictate for far too long.

But in a week in which the Socceroos squad and Sydney Derby will dominate the headlines, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that football is doing better than we care to admit.

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