The toxic hypocrites of Aussie football
Australia have tumbled out of World Cup Russia 2018 registering just one point from 3 matches, falling bottom of the group. Despite the World rankings clearly ranking Australia at 36 in the world (the highest since 2006) in comparison to Denmark 12, Peru 11 and France 7, the fickle deluded Australian fans are again whipping themselves up into an agro fervor pointing fingers at ‘who is to blame for this unacceptable failure?’ FFA apparently if the facebook feeds are anything to go by, we just love blaming those at the top don’t we, ignorantly skipping past the glaring facts.
The one area the FFA needs to improve is investment in grassroots, the talent just isnt coming through anymore. Daniel Arzani is one player and as exciting as his talent may be, he cant do it on his own. We need a youth system similar to that of when the golden generation came through, NSL-like youth league, AIS development of young talent etc- The FFA Centre of Excellence was closed down in 2017 and we have not performed at any youth tournaments lately. Fees for kids to play are astronomical while other nations in Asia, and around the world, invest in their youth molding them into stars of the future. Future Australian prospects do not look good despite the national team and the Matildas continuing to qualify and represent Australia on the world stage. Its a waste of all the hard work and funding to not have the structure in place to capture and produce young passionate fans excited by the event which occurs only 1 month every 4 years... and there’s no guarantees we’ll qualify for the next one.
So who, if anyone, is to blame then? Well lets be real, and not a bunch of spoiled entitled little brats who are so used to winning easy domestic sports (we invented because we were hopeless at football) we just assume this will translate to the biggest stage, and proceed throw a tantrum everytime we fail to giant-kill the top nations.
1- Population? - we dont have it. Top nations have the population and talent pools
2- Grassroots investment? - no cigar
3- Passion? Football is still a 3rd tier sport whether we like it or not. The egg-ball hand(not foot)ball codes are ingrained into our culture, and while the simulation and gamesmanship from other cultures continues, we are unlikely to win those fans over - they are all about showing how ‘tough’ they are, not diving and rolling around feigning injury to waste time.
4- Fairplay, the style of play our culture demands puts us at a disadvantage - like the English team, we will continue to get knocked out though frustrating circumstances like dives, poor refereeing decisions, favoritism, corruption and the unluckiest of deflections - a bitter pill to swallow with another massive 4 year campaign, thousands of kilometers to travel and matches to play in difficult conditions.
In todays social media information age, the most powerful voices are those from the media. We talk about it in politics, Trump for example certainly lets his thoughts on the media be known. Like the guy or not we all know how powerful those media personalities and programs are, and their influence on public opinion. In the case of Ange Postecoglou he reports his standing down from the national team is mostly due to the non stop criticisms and harassment of him and his family, despite fulfilling his mandates of - win the Asian Cup, qualify for the World Cup and regenerate the squad with a new generation of players - his attacking style was understood to be reflective of the Aussie culture and mentality, and his brave young players got the job done. Instead of congratulating our first ever Aussie manager to achieve these feats, we tear him to shreds instead - pundits aka Craig Foster, Robbie Slater & Mark Bosnich - all who formed part of THAT 1997 squad who failed incredibly against Iran, the worst stain on our football history, are at the forefront of criticisms slagging off everything they possibly can about the manager & teams performance conveniently ignoring the massive challenges undertaken. Now he has resigned, the likes of Craig Foster now echo his philosophies as opposed to criticizing them - ie ‘never take a step back,’... what a 2 faced kick in the guts.
Many new fans to the game dont have the insights of a purist who has played and been a fan of the game for a lifetime. These fickle ‘fans’ are easily misguided and we have seen how quickly how a group think mentality can get out of hand with the disgraceful trolling of Robbie Kruse. The fans should be looking in the mirror when looking for someone to blame. We have seen the negative impact on teams like England and Argentina from unforgiving fans and pundits... and they are great footballing nations. Australia are still minnows and our players need our support and encouragement, isn’t that was Aussie culture is supposed to be all about? This behavior was witnessed worldwide - the fans should be ashamed, we will no undoubtedly be reminded of this disgusting behavior in the future. Congratulations - worst fans of 2018.
Craig Foster, Robbie Slater & Mark Bosnich - you are the problems not the solution. If you really want to make a difference.. Coach, contribute, mentor - you fence sitting hypocrites. Educate the public and promote a positive supportive culture for the fans to adopt, both to encourage grassroots participation but also provide the support our players and staff need for success on the stage of the worlds largest, and most difficult sporting tournament.
If you call yourself a proud Aussie that is...
