An Arrogant Bunch

If it’s Craig Foster’s aim to convince me to support Australia’s bid for the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022 then he is going the wrong way about it. In a recent article in the Sun Herald and in a conversation with Les Murray on SBS he came off as arrogant and conceited. Even suggesting that other sports don’t matter and that football [soccer] would inevitably take over Australia.

It’s true that soccer (I refuse to call it football) is the only truly international sport, but Foster should not be so arrogant when the local A League is on the decline despite the addition of new teams. Soccer does have the highest participation rates in juniors, yet our top competition can only be compared to the 3^rd or 4^th division in England.

Les Murray even got in the act on SBS recently, referring to the behaviour of rival codes as belligerent, inconvenient and unaustralian. He even suggested that we try and attain the bid before sorting out what he considers to be minor details. Getting three other codes that garner more support in Australia to shut up shop for three months is not minor!!

These two want other codes to just lie down and let them have their way. They use the examples of other countries and how they would laugh at the situation we have here. We have a unique situation. I can’t think of another country that has four football codes running professionally.

How about stadiums? We just don’t have them. I’ve blogged about it already. Our best are designed for cricket and Aussie Rules. FIFA want at least 12 stadiums of 40,000 minimum capacities, we have maybe 8. We just don’t have the population to make those kinds of stadiums viable. If Foster’s prediction is true, that soccer will take over Australia, then the sport needs to get cracking on some new soccer only stadiums.

For now, all soccer commentators should pull their collective heads in and show the other codes a tad of respect.

Apologies to Soccer Fans

2005 was by far my worst year of playing footy. It was not very enjoyable indeed. Words cannot really express how bad it was. The only thing that got me through to the end of the year was my strong sense of commitment to the team.

Soon after the end of the season a rather enterprising young man offered a well-timed invitation to play Soccer for Wenty Uniting in the Churches competition. He got me when I was at my most vulnerable, depressed after the end of an ordinary season. He managed to get a few other friends to play, which made it somewhat enjoyable to be starting pre season in October for a completely new sport.

I played the full year of Soccer but never really felt like I was getting into the game. Sure I was playing ok in a pretty good team, and winning games is always more fun than losing. But I could never really get into Soccer even during the Soccer mad period, otherwise known as the FIFA World Cup.

In a way the year was very fruitful. As it made me realise how much I miss playing footy (Aussie Rules). I drove to the ground on Thursday night (26/10) and felt so excited to be starting pre-season in October. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Probably since I was a junior. It was also quickly evident that the club was able to turn around the misfortunes of 2005. Everyone is smiling and pleased to be there which is the way it should be.

So sorry to Soccer that I couldn’t stay, but thankyou for making me realise how much I love playing the game of Australian Rules Football.

World Cup 2018 Bid

Have you heard that NSW Premier Morris Iemma is pushing all Australian states to come together and organise a bid for the 2018 Soccer World Cup. He has done an ok job as ninemsn has reported. The only hurdle politically is probably going to be between the Victorian and NSW Premiers debating whether the MCG or Telstra Stadium should host the final. When I believe they have much more important things to worry about, such as the fitness of our stadiums to host such an event. Here are some points to comprehend:

• Germany had 12 stadiums
• All hold 40,000 plus spectators
• Hamburg – 50,000
• Hanover – 43,000
• Berlin – 72,000
• Gelsenkirchen – 52,000
• Dortmund – 65,000
• Franfurt – 48,000
• Kaiserslautern – 46,000
• Cologne – 45,000
• Leipzig – 43,00
• Munich – 66,000
• Nuremburg – 41,000
• Stuttgart – 52,000
• All, I believe, are dedicated to Soccer
• Our stadiums have League, Union, Aussie Rules, or a mixture of all three played on them
• These sports chop up the surface – and soccer players won’t like that
• These sports will probably have to interrupt their seasons to fit in these games

According to Australian Stadiums we have the following venues that may suffice as far as capacity is concerned:

• Sydney
• Telstra Stadium – 83,500
• Aussie Stadium – 42,000
• Sydney Cricket Ground – 44,000
• Melbourne
• Melbourne Cricket Ground – 100,000
• Telstra Dome – 56,347
• Brisbane
• Suncorp Stadium – 52,500
• Gabba – 42,000
• Queensland Sport and Athletic Centre (formally ANZ Stadium) – 48,400
• Adelaide
• AAMI Stadium – 51,515
• Adelaide Oval – 33,597
• Perth
• Subiaco Oval – 42,992
• NZ
• Eden Park – 45,472
• Jade Stadium – 36,500
• Westpac Stadium – 36,000

We have a lot of Stadiums around the 20,000 capacity due mainly, I believe, because of our population. We don’t have enough people to require huge venues for regular use. We only have Telstra Stadium today because the world was coming here to watch the Olympics in 2000. The MCG was redeveloped primarily for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and only fills for big matches like AFL finals, Rugby Tests and Soccer Internationals.

I have even checked out New Zealand. More out of desperation than anything else as I don't think we have the facilities at the moment. Maybe our trans-tasman friends can help us out. Even though they dropped out for the Rugby World Cup and theis event is much bigger.

Out of that list we have no dedicated Soccer ovals. Not even half of them are rectangle.

So Iemma and co. should start building!

Perceptions Rule....apparently

In my short experience in either playing or watching Football (nee Soccer) I have noticed that the referees let their perceptions get in the way of their judgements. For example, if you are being perceived as diving all the time then when there is a foul committed on you then it more than likely won't be called.

Now, I didn't stay up to watch the Australia Vs Brasil game so I may be wrong here. The Socceroos are perceived as a rough team, resulting in a lot of fouls being paid against them. Whereas similar offences for Brasil were not paid.

If this is the case then I'm sure everyone would agree with Harry Kewell's sentiments to the German Referee, perhaps not his method though.

Could one get suspended for that? And will the diehards believe that is part of a conspiracy?

FIFA World Cup

I have been trying to get into the FIFA World Cup. I have found it extremely difficult, and not just because the games are televised in our early morning hours.

Here’s an example of why I think I will never fully get into Football (nee Soccer). Late Saturday night I started watching the England Vs Paraguay match. After 3 minutes the first goal was scored from a David Beckham free kick.

I thought that as this goal was scored so early that there were more to come. I stuck it out till half time but couldn’t fight sleep any longer so I reluctantly trudged off to bed. How justified I felt when I saw the final result remained at 1 – 0. I’m glad England won but to stay up for a result like that I ain’t doing. The same thing happened on Sunday night with Holland scoring in the 18th minute and finally beating Serbia & Montenegro 1 – 0.

As Kathy McCabe wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday 10th June:

“Maintaining enthusiasm and a vertical position as two teams battle to escape a nil all draw during the FA Cup Final is not my idea of a good time at 5am”

I appreciate and admire the skill involved but it’s not enough to keep me up at night.

The F.A. Cup

I did something for the first time on the weekend. I stayed up until some ridiculous hour to watch a soccer match. Not just any match they tell me, but the FA Cup. I’ve had a quick lesson on what all the Soccer (or Football) competitions around Europe are and what is their significance. The FA Cup is apparently one of the biggest. It is a Knockout competition featuring teams from all English competitions.

The teams playing off this year were Liverpool and West Ham. Immediately I had a dilemma as I had initially adopted Liverpool as my team because their colour was red, the same as the Swans. However, West Ham are nicknamed The Hammers, so they are, I guess, my sentimental favourites.

The match itself ebbed and flowed, mainly ebbed. There were enough goals to satisfy my appetite, but only half of them were very good. The other half were very lucky. Two of Liverpool’s goals came from their captain, Steve Gerrard, who had won the Player’s Player award from the Football Association. They were the best strikes of the ball I have ever seen, simply pure skill.

The only real fan of either of the teams, Nathan, was up and down out of his seat like a yo yo. I was about to tell him to calm down when I realised that that is what I looked like back in September last year when Sydney won the AFL Premiership.

The match finished at 3 all, even after 30 minutes of extra time. Unfortunately that means that the game was decided by penalty shots. I say unfortunately because it is such a cruel way to lose. But there has to be a winner, and when you play a game where it is so hard to score you need a simple way to break the deadlock.

There is so much pressure on the players taking a shot at what appears to be an easy task. When you take into account the 2 hours of game time as well as the 90,000 strong crowd singing songs and cheering, this was going to be no easy task. It showed on the faces of the West Ham players. They never looked confident and unsurprisingly missed 3 of their 4 penalty shots. Liverpool slotted 3 and that was all the difference.