Are we a mature enough football nation to honestly discuss the Socceroos?

"I haven’t heard anything since then and the thread on sfcu hasn’t been updated either, so have this group done anything I dont have a clue." Same on the City website. One mention from around June last year and no updates since then. The APL has walked away from it or is being very secretive about what's going on. Can somebody from the APL step up and inform us. If you want fan engagement then this isn't how you do it.

Sydney not only has a FRG the request for applications to join it was on the club website almost a year ago. If you want to see who is in it was revealed on the club website news before the start of the season. I dont understand how you expect to know whats happening at the club if you dont read the website. I haven't heard anything since then and the thread on sfcu hasn't been updated either, so have this group done anything I dont have a clue.

If you want to improve the outcomes for Australia’s national football teams, you need to change the Australian culture. This is where the discussion needs to focus. Back in 2002, the late great Socceroo Captain Johnny Warren wrote this. “soccer in this country faces entrenched cultural and institutional resistance. One only has to scan the national newspapers to get the feeling that the editors consider the sport a minor one, and not worthy of much coverage, except, of course, for the occasional incident of crowd trouble, when there is always a camera available and a reporter ready with pen poised. For the most part, Australians are fixated on what are relatively minor sports”. Not much seems to have changed in nearly a quarter of a century. The football fraternity, of which I count myself as one, needs to realise that when you are a minority, the standard of behaviour expected of you by the mainstream culture is different to what is accepted from established codes. The bar is higher. That is just how it is for minorities. The infamous “bucket man” incident as well as behaviour of some fans during the Australia Cup and women’s World Cup are recent incidents. Not only are these incidents to be condemned for the acts themselves. They must also be condemned for the irreparable damage to the image of the Beautiful Game in mainstream Australia. Mainstream Australia simply does not get football. It largely ignores it, at times denigrates it, often looks for ways to bring it down, and more than occasionally it seeks to stifle success and divert funding away to other sports. All the promises and the enthusiasm surrounding the Matildas latest World Cup venture, have yet to translate into a change of heart in Australia. Look no further than the hand wringing surrounding the Gabba as an Olympic venue in Brisbane. The mainstream media up here in South East Queensland is not talking about the chronic shortage of suitable venues for football, or where to house the potential thousands of spectators from around the Globe competing for non-existent seats to watch men’s and women’s football at non-existent Olympic football stadiums. All the focus is on sports which are not played at the Olympics. It will take time and effort and unity of purpose amongst the football family to change the culture. The Matildas have advanced the conversation, though clearly there remains much to be done. Progress of women’s football and engagement with Asia are two things suggested by Johnny Warren. We have seen progress there, though we are failing to keep up in terms of investment and in danger of falling behind. But the biggest challenge which Johnny Warren spoke of eludes us. He wrote: “It is for this football culture on a global scale, that I so desperately crave. It is this football culture that Australia desperately needs”. “It is..the cultural resistance that must be overcome. This remains a pivotal issue in the nation’s development and the game’s vitality”. Simply adopting a we will play and the crowds will come approach has not worked and will not work. Expansion to a second tier in my view is likely to fail. It will stretch limited resources and is likely to feed the counter narratives and further damage the game. Also to be avoided are knee-jerk solutions such as the decision to change the Grand Final venue. The A League is too fragile for such self-inflicted wounding. Not continually shooting ourselves in the foot and not feeding the negative stereotypes would seem absolutely essential. We need to acknowledge the industrial scale of the cultural changes required and focus on what will encourage inclusion as well as avoid decisions that feed the negative stereotypes and further damage the game.

If Sydney FC has a FRG then Im both disappointed and dissatisfied. I kind of expected it would be a closed shop with only active fans considered and this appears to be so. I was hoping it would be a mixture of such fans AND those like me who support from the stands ie the less ‘radical’ ones. The initial correspondence for Sydney suggested the latter but it appears the former has taken place..IF theres a FRG in Sydney FC it wasnt picked by the majority of the Members thats for sure..and in particular not from long term members like me!

I’m not sure if governments are really the major obstacle in our path though - indeed, to be subsidised would be beneficial, but the AFL and NRL only receive money from certain state governments (i.e., WA and SA don’t even have NRL clubs to give money to) and the other difference is that the AFL and NRL are over 100 years old. Many of their clubs pre-date Federation and are among the oldest football clubs on the planet and in their genesis never got a leg up by governments - why should the A League clubs expect to? For all the registered football juniors and PSG-jersey wearing kids in the country, the A League is not packing out stadiums and the government nor the media can be blamed for football fans not following football. Australians have to take the game’s destiny into their own hands and back the domestic game with their own money and their own passion.

Mike, have you been following the APL initiated Fan Representative Group idea? I understand from recent communication I’ve had with the APL that some meetings were held with club FRGs but crickets so far in terms of communicating with the wider football community. Nothing on their website!!!

Again not a glowing indictment of the strikers Australia are producing though - mens or women's. But congrats to her!

when we're richer than the ME :crying: ... or when east Asia splits off as it should!

Gaz when you think about it, the World Cup Qualifiers were held in the ME due to covid, the WC was in the ME, now the AC is in the ME. So when is the penny going to be flipped and the ME teams have to travel and deal with jetlag and climate etc, and the like of Sth Korea, Japan and Australia dont have to travel?

Harry, I am not sure about the doubting masses, I believe there are a lot of football fans out there, but at this point in our evolution, I would suggest politicians are our nemesis. As stated on a previous post, how can football grow and evolve when e.g. Tasmania, where there are almost 40,000 registered footballers, and yet the State Govt, invests 500 dollars per player in AFL and NRL, and only 19 per player for football. That to me is out and out old school, generational culture bias.

I have to agree! But his club form has not been great either.

Off topic - Michelle Heyman made the Matildas squad to play Uzbekistan. I was pleased. Hope she still has it at international level.

Agree!

Sadly there is a lot of truth in your comment. Australia's mainstream media only responds to success on the field. Such a pity. :unhappy:

There is only one way for the Socceroo and the Matildas to get press coverage that is to win trophies. To be honest both the teams have had opportunities to do this but they have fallen short when they have had the best media coverage and the country behind them, this is now becoming regular occurrences. To most sport lovers in this country they are just not seen as the pinnacle in sport because of this, in short they are becoming teams that promise a lot and deliver little, it’s bit like ho hum we go again. I hope Miller has a long period of soul searching because his recklessness has now caused us to now question everything about the team when it could of been so different. Arnie deserves better than this from his players.

This is very true - the fruits of academy football in Australia is only just starting to bear fruit (starting with the generation you mentioned). Sometimes we forget that Australian football has been competing - and qualifying for World Cups mind you - in its infancy stage. We have never been a mature footballing nation and this is what makes the World Game in this country so promising. The best times are ahead of us, not behind. Hopefully an Olympic qualification proves that to the doubting masses.

gotta say it means a ME side will win it which disappoints me :unhappy: BUT I think we were let down by skills as well as tactics. Maybe combined with a poor tourney from most players. We showed we had a dangerous attack but couldnt control possession at the right times or construct attacks regularly..it was all hit or miss.

I told everyone South Korea were dead tired and no one listened. When your tired you make mistakes and they certainly made plenty of them against Jordan. Its about the tournament schedule South Korea started on the 15th and had a lot of tough games and two extra time games, though the Australia match wasn't really that exhausting. Australia could have won easily, if they did some form of pressing . They didnt even do a normal park the bus, they did a Wellington Phoenix super park the bus, where you just make sure the center of the area is packed and dont press the edge of the area. Its Arnies biggest failure since 2007 Asia cup.

Boyle wouldn't have been so useless if anyone had been able to create some space for him to work with.

Yes but they have a much worse coach than us.