Soccer Fan Blog

This entire post follows on from the comments on my last piece.

When I first read your comment, Ed, I had to go back and re-read my article. I didn’t realise how much it came across as so dark on the A-League. When I sat down to write I had in mind a bit of a comparison of the two soccer experiences of the day, highlighting the simple joys of junior and amateur league soccer. Clearly more than that came out.

The fact is that I too would be heartbroken if the Roar folded, and even moreson if the A-League suffered collapse. That neither of these things is impossible is of major concern.

Thanks all for your comments. I love the idea of a state champions / A-League top 6 Cup, or something. And you’re absolutely correct Guido to point out that the reasons people follow a sport can be very diverse and personal.

I want to write more about these sorts of topics – trying to really scrutinise, from a consumer’s point of view, what the A-League is. There’s a lot of unfiltered optimism about the rise of soccer in Australia, but if you read the introductions of soccer books from Australia going back to the 1970s, this optimism is nothing new.

Les Murray was quick this season to talk up A-League crowds, but we all can see the A-League isn’t in the clear yet. Why? What can be done? Does it matter?

I want the A-League to survive forever. Connectedness to the communities, however that is developed, is very important in my view but so is quality. When people follow Rugby or AFL in this country, or for that matter cricket or motor racing, they know they are watching the best in the world; the elite. I mean if you’re going to dedicate a lot of your discretionary spending to something, not to mention emotional energy, you don’t want it in the back of your mind that you’re really watching a second division league.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a fan. ‘Fan’ is a shortening of ‘fanatic’ and in the football world we tend to wear it on our sleeves. The important realisation is that we are not the game’s locus of growth, or even survival. Fanatics do not a mass-movement make. Fanaticism, as we are often heard to candidly celebrate (see Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch), is a disease. It’s not even particularly healthy.

I’ll digress more. I am a ‘new fan’, as I’ve said. On the face of it, the FFA should see a bloke like me and say, ‘cool, a new fan; hope there’s lots more like that’. But they would be mistaken. You see I am someone who is guilty of having been utterly fanatical about various religious and political ideologies throughout my life. I may not have been a fan of soccer, but I have been previously diseased nonetheless. From my own mental health’s point of view soccer is a wonderful way to live out my disease with minimum adverse impact, a sort of ideological methadone program. So the FFA should not see me as the thin edge of an ever-broadening wedge.

The FFA also must know that to get people interested in the A-League you have to get them interested in the game of soccer, but their immediate dilemna is that an interest in soccer can exist in its own right, and they have only one product available, for which they’re asking real money. Back to quality.

I reckon the salary cap needs to be a) kept permanently, and b) raised, a lot. To begin with I think it should be doubled. Basically the criteria should shift from “What sort of figure could all the clubs afford?” to “What sort of figure could the four wealthiest clubs realistically afford?”

I think about the ‘market’ for Clubs. Not tickets, TV subs or merchandise, but actual Clubs. Dudes like Clive Palmer or the various Russians and Arabs who are buying European clubs for fun. A bloke has to have his train set doesn’t he? I think having a salary cap, and a set of reasonable restrictions on foreign players, actually makes the prospect more fun for your average fun-loving billionare. It’s just part of the game, and it keeps costs down to the merely stupendous. I’d like to see salary capping across the world for this reason. Note that a high cap can still allow for really amazing teams.

In ancient Athens there was apparently no business taxes and there was hence a very wealthy merchant class. Although these individuals paid no direct tax, they had burdens as citizens. It was normal for an individual to fund (and command) a warship for example, or a production of a play, or a sporting festival. There’s a certain sense to this, and there’s no real losers.

To have quality teams you need to be able to buy the best in the World. As Ed points out, the A-League is improving and there’s no doubt that every top player who comes into the league makes it more attractive for other top players. Lifting the cap on teams like Sydney and the Gold Coast, who can afford better players, would accelerate this process.

Of course these rich teams would come to dominate the league. It’s common knowledge that playing against superior opposition helps lift your own game so the result would be a better quality league and the extra drama of actual, rather than merely statistical, ‘David and Goliath’ stories. And then there’s always that other bored billionare…

Finally here, can we allow ourselves to be as ambitious in the long term for the A-League as we dare to be with regard to the Socceroos? We do dare, don’t we, to dream for our countrymen the Socceroos to be in the top 10 in the World? Top five even? I have had halucinagenic moments of even thinking that they could, just could, with a mixture of luck, terrible luck for various other teams, and perfectly timed form, win the World Cup! Admit it! You’ve done the same.

Shouldn’t we be aiming to have one of the top 10 leagues in the world? Top 5?

Just as a post script, I also said in my last article that ‘Queensland’ teams meant nothing to me. What bullshit! Queensland teams all in the top 3 by season’s end, and I will be hyperbolically happy.

The lead headline on the ABC News site at this time is Australian troops begin Iraq pullout: report. It was posted at 6.03pm, short minutes before Harry Kewell all but finished Iraq’s chances to get to the 2010 World Cup. Irony? I don’t know. It really doesn’t matter.

Funny old game that. I really thought it would be wet and weathery, but it wasn’t really. It was pretty packed out, but still over 5000 empty seats. Jacob and his mate Stav were waylaid in a food queue for a few minutes after half time so they missed the goal. The moment of the goal was jubilant and you’d have to say the atmosphere was ‘up’, but the crowded pedestrian processsions and train ride home were far more subdued than any victorious crowd I’d ever seen. It’s not like it was late or anything, even if it is Sunday night.

Overall I’d say it was the result I expected but I was very worried about Australia’s inexperienced defence beforehand, and rightly so from what we witnessed. As Eamonn points out, there was a good dose of luck in that win. I truly hope Neil is back from his family duties for the away game on Saturday or I will expect us to concede our first goal under Verbeek.

Furthermore, this is where we actually need Craig Moore to make himself available if needed. Like really, World Cups are the real written history of our country’s game, it is warfare between nations for the greatest sporting prize there is. ‘Retiring on a high point’ is all very well, but if the country actually needs you, there’s a certain moral pressure I reckon. Craig, we need you, even if just to help Australia get there. My hardly technical or emperical observations tonight were that our defenders have fine skills but require experienced leadership in the middle – someone who can play and position himself well and scream instructions to the younger blokes at the same time. It’s Moore’s experience that the Socceroos need back there, especially if Neil is out. And it wouldn’t hurt his game with the Roar to get a few extra good games either.

In other World Cup news the Africa Confederation started their huge 12-Group Round 2 of qualifiers yesterday and continue as I write. Togo and Camaroon won their first games as expected (against Zambia and Caper Verde Islands respectively), but my disapointment was Kenya being beaten away by Namibia. I started following Kenya’s progress because my housemate John, an excellent and knowledgeable football compatriot, is from Kenya. According to him they are in the easiest possible group (Namibia, Guinea and Zimbabwe) but they really should have beaten Namibia. John was devastated.

In late March a few heads rolled. The Cayman Islands, The British Virgin Islands, Aruba, Dominica and Turks and Caicos Islands, all from the North, Central American and Caribbean Federation, were all knocked from contention for World Cup 2010.

As I’ve been writing James Brown has put up an analysis of the Socceroos game. It was over a year ago, after James had had an uncharacteristically long lapse from writing, that I jibed in a comment, “Have you got a girlfriend James?” Well… ahem.

And my apologies for being so slack. The most important thing I have failed to do of course is wrap up the Blogger’s Cup.

Mike only won by a point (and congrats to Neil for such a close second), but he did so even though he’d absented himself from the country and the competition for several weeks. It can only be called a well-deserved win, and especially deserved, in a gold-watch sort of way, as he has farewelled the blogging world for a season. Hope to see you around in comments Mike and hope you come back before too long. Your prize, not Irish whiskey as promised because I couldn’t find a good single malt, but scotch, is on its way. Drink one to Australia’s humble but developing football blogging fraternity.

I don’t know if I’ll do the Blogger’s Cup this season, but I’ll definitely be blogging more as the A-League gets going again. It’s the Roar’s year.

PS. John over at A Seat at the A-League has just posted a good account of tonight’s game, as has Tony The Round Ball Analyst.

It’s hard to admit that football, of all things, has been deprioritised in my life behind work, but that is the only real excuse I have for barely blogging last year. I remain emotionally attached to the QLD Roar, and fret whenever they’re playing whether I can watch it or not, and surf the soccer media regularly to punctuate my day. But I can’t say I’ll be blogging much for a while at any rate.

Moreso next year though. Jacob and I are going to the World Cup. I’m sure I’ll write a bit in the lead up, but covering the experience in my own ridiculous way will be an important part of the experience for me at least. That’s still a long way away.

What I want to attempt to get at here, in typical blog-tradition, is a discussion about what the hell I should do to organise this (to me) ambitious adventure. Is any of the handfull of people who read this blog going themselves? Have any of you been before? So far I’m thinking of finding a tour deal, but are there ways of getting the best deal and the best chance for Australian-game tickets?

Of course I fully expect, from reading about people’s experiences of the 2006, 2002 and other Cups, that regardless of how well we have tickets, accomodation and transport organised, that it will be chaos. Jamie Trecker (Love & Blood at the World Cup with the Footballers, Fans and Freaks), a notable and card-carrying journalist with expenses, found himself struggling and once had to sleep on a train station with dozens of other fans after a riot stopped the trains for a while. This was in Germany. Germany might be said to be among best practice in the world when it comes to efficiency, organisation and security. South Africa would not be included in such a list.

Now I consider myself a worldly and resourceful person but this one makes me a little anxious, and Jacob has never been outside very safe boundaries. On the other hand I will be at the quixotically auspicious age of 42, and Jacob will have just turned 15 – not old enough to drink, have sex and make up his own bloody mind, but at the same time old enough to… um… drink, have sex and make up his own bloody mind. Anyway, an adventure it will be, and I have briefed the lad that nothing will be guaranteed, that we will wear colours and use any groups of Australian fans as security, especially if we beat England on a dubious ref decision, and we will make absolutely certain that we meet a Norwegian single mother with her teenage daughter. Apart from these key things, we might have to wing it.

Anyway, if anyone reading has any advice at all, serious or otherwise, lay it down please.

One of the things I learned as a novice fan following the 2006 World Cup is that the World Cup as I knew it was not the World Cup Competition as such, but merely the finals. This really got me, the very idea of an international competition with over 200 teams. This tickled the political and social chords of interest at least as much as the sporting spectacle.

Since the Qatar game the other night, Australia has entered the fray of the 2010 World Cup, and I’ve had some fun checking out how the competition is going so far. This is just some random notes.

Of 201 teams who officially began (or are yet to begin) the qualifiers, 31 have already been knocked out.

In October and November last year a preliminary knock out round in Africa claimed Comoros, Guinea-Bissau and Somalia. The rest of the federation has been drawn in 12 groups of four, to begin the round on the 30 May with Cameroon vs Cape Verde Islands and other games. They play for 5 places in the finals, including South Africa which has it’s place as host guaranteed.

New Zealand has all but won Oceania but definitely out in that Federation are American Samoa (remember them), Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa, Tonga and Solomon Islands. On 23 June New Zealand will most likely defeat Fiji bringing them to 12 points and claiming the Oceania 0.5 chance, knocking out Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Then they’ll have to wait for the Asian Federation to get sorted before they can play off Asia’s number 5. Oh what delicious irony if they have to play Australia.

A lot of teams were knocked out in Asia before we got to play, seeded as we were in the third round of play-offs. They are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chinese Taipei, Macau, India, Vietnam, Palestine, Nepal, Maldives, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Yemen, Tajikistan, Indonesia and Hong Kong. The remainder are in five groups of four, playing for our 4.5 places.

Europe is divided into nine groups of six and their opening match on 6 September is between Albania and Sweden. Europe is playing off for a whopping 13 places in the finals.

Games have already been played in the North, Central America and Caribbean Federation, but teams will not start dropping out until 26 March, when Dominic and Barbados play their second home-and-away to decide who will play off against the USA (good luck to either of them) along with a few other parallel games between minnow hopefuls. They go for 3.5 places in the finals,

South America may be one of the top two Federations but it is the smallest in numbers. They are one big home-and-away group of 10. Everyone’s already played 4 games but there’s a long way to go. Paraguay is on top with 10 points and Bolivia is trailing on one. The next games are on 14 June, with Argentina (on 9 points) vs Ecuador (3), Uruguay (4) vs Venezuela (6), Peru (2) vs Columbia (8), Paraguay (10) vs Brazil (8) and Bolivia (1) vs Chile (4). They are playing off for 4.5 places in the final, the 5th having to play off against the 4th from Africa.

I intend to maintain at least a watching brief of this meta-competition, and will no doubt stream a few of the games, and more as the stakes in the big federations heat up. I do this with a globe on my desk. Really, this game is cool.

However sparsely, I intend to follow an entire World Cup for the first time.

2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee South Africa Board Member (OC) and owner of the Kaizer Chiefs Football Club, Kaizer Motaung, was very pleased with the outcome of the draw.
“Well first of all it was great to be part of this auspicious occasion and obviously it is quite exciting to be part of an event of this magnitude. It is also gratifying to see that this dream is becoming a reality and that we are getting closer and ready to hosting this huge world event. And it bodes well for Africa because it is the first of its kind and I am sure its going to leave a long lasting legacy for us. I think the real work starts now and for the next two years there is obviously a lot of work to be done to make sure we are able to deliver a very good final product,” said Motaung, who was one of the Preliminary Draw assistants.
The General-Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Zwelinzima Vavi, who is also an OC Board Member, expressed his views about the significance of the preliminary draw event and said that despite their right to strike, construction workers at World Cup stadiums are 100% behind the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
“Remember there has been a lot of doubt over our ability. This (the draw) was an important opportunity for us to say that the executive of FIFA in 2004 was right (to award South Africa the tournament), that this is Africa’s time and we are ready. And I think it was very important that we make that statement and I think we made it very well”.
As the labour representative of the OC Board, Vavi confidently spoke about the importance of the workforce in the context of football.
“Workers are basically the number one supporters of football. Football is a working class sport and despite the fact that workers may go on strike to demand a better cut of the cake, they can never ever have any intention to sabotage our ability to host a successful World Cup in 2010. Because soccer is workers and workers are soccer. And this is their life, this is their sport and this is their emotions. I am very happy that those workers who now have their issues resolved welcomed the president of FIFA (during a stadium inspection of Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban) in such an enthusiastic fashion. It was a great statement by those workers indeed, just like it is a great statement by all the workers who work overtime, work long hours and work very hard to make sure that all the stadiums are ready in time. They know that the that whole African continent have their hopes and aspirations on the shoulders of those who have been given that responsibility to build that infrastructure that will put us up on the map of the world”.
“So congratulations to those workers and we know that they will do the country very proud. Their commitment to a successful 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa cannot be doubted. They are only workers and they will always raise issues about their wages and working conditions but that can’t be understood to be a deliberate attempt to undermine our effort to hold a successful World Cup in 2010. And I am happy that they demonstrated that to the president of FIFA and they are demonstrating that every day too by working extra hours to make sure that we are ready on time,” said Vavi.
Moeketsi Mosola, the Chief Eexecutive Officer of South African Tourism, was extremely excited about significance of the success of the Preliminary Draw and the confidence it gave the international community.
“I think if there was any doubt the world saw tonight what South Africa is capable of. This is the first of the four big events that will take place over the next two and a half years and there is definitely no doubt that at the heart of what we are doing is our people. And really we are very proud of what the South African Local Organising Committee has put together and as a South African I can tell you definitely that I feel very proud of what happened here tonight.”
“We have always known that we can actually do this in 2010. People will leave this country knowing exactly that World Cup 2010 is in safe hands, is in good hands and basically people need to start booking their holidays come 2010,” said Mosola.
“People have felt the humanity of our people in the last few days and I know some people will be staying for a few more days. That’s why I keep saying that people must start booking their next big holiday in 2010, because you are going to be having a great time on this beautiful continent. We were hosting at least 20 very key journalists and editors from around the world, half of which don’t want to go home tomorrow, they want to stay. Suffice to say their perceptions have been changed by what we have here. They been very surprised by the level of commitment from our government and our people. I am very excited and I am really glad to be living in these interesting times,” said Mosola in closing.
Ghanaian football legend, Abédi Pelé, was equally delighted by the success of the Preliminary Draw.
“Well I think its unbelievable that today all those who didn’t have the confidence in us are all very happy. That’s why the say this is the power of football, football brings people together. We have proved to the world that we cannot only play the game, but we can host it as well,” said Pele.