When I first arrived in Australia ten years ago, emigrating from a nation with some of the richest football traditions and heritage in the world left me hungering to see the Socceroos graduate to the top table of football. I felt that such a nation with a rich sporting tradition deserved to have a side regularly competing at the highest level in the world’s favourite game. I imagined that with such an appetite for sport, Australia would embrace the sport with a new vigour and “Soccer” could take its place alongside AFL NRL and Union as part of the sporting tapestry.
Well much of that has happened, and I cheered enthusiastically through the 2006 showing and with the eventual re-drawing of Australia’s qualification route, Australia can now be assumed as a regular World Cup participant. Equally at home, the A-League has rejuvenated the domestic scene and is a screaming success. So, very good.
However, in recent years Soccer has come to emulate some of the more ugly side of Australian sporting enjoyment as well, something very prevalent in Cricket in particular. Its an ugly, mean spirited and unattractive form of jingoistic triumphalism that is not becoming and is quite the reverse of what I imagined should develop. The Indian cricket tour of 2009 that saw Australia cope really quite ungraciously with the prospect of being challenged competitively on their home turf is a good example. I’ll never forget of course as well the grumpy way in which John Howard dispensed medals at the 2003 World Cup final, unable to rise above his own disappointment and expectations to congratulate the winning side. I have seen this emerge in Soccer recently, for instance Australia’s behaviour playing New Zealand in the last home warm up before setting sail for South Africa. Unable to accommodate the fact that the All Whites had obviously failed to read the script about a triumphant departure, they set about savaging the Kiwis with several unsportsmanlike tackles. I was at the SCG for the final moments of the 2007 Ashes tour where Ponting etc showed that Australia can not only be poor losers, but very ungracious winners as well. The media as usual are both the driver and the symptom – ordinarily responding to victory with lots of self-indulgent glory bathing; and to defeat with angry navel gazing and castigation – barely even referring to the opposition in either case. For evidence of this review the limited coverage of the recent 20/20 defeat to England.
Perfectly exemplary of this syndrome is this Daily Telegraph article by David Penberthy, which incensed me when it was published last week. Beginning with the ironic and ominous opening, “We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves,” it then wallows in celebration at Australia’s short World Cup history, completely omitting the disasters (such as losing 3-1 to the USA a week ago or failing to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, or for 1998, 1994, 1990, 1986, 1982, 1978...etc). Subsequently it seeks to cherry pick the blackest moments in England’s recent history, utterly and conveniently ignoring any of the highlights (semi-finals in 1990 and 2002 or the 2002 5-1 slaughter of Germany). The tedious rant ultimately comes to the audacious proposition that Australia will knock England out of the world Cup.
The proposition itself is not outrageous – they should meet in the second round and England do have a tendency to self-destruct. However the reasoning of the argument is essentially that this should happen because Australia is GREAT and England are losers. Indeed it reaches the height of stupidity by using Tim Henman to illustrate the point – which is as relevant as trying to say Australia should win the world cup because Stephen Bradbury is Australian. (It really is the most ghastly piece of hack journalism, and I told him so ) This attitude seems reminiscent of one of those Vietnam movie scenes where the cocky rookie joining a platoon of vets naively brags about his courage to those who’ve been to hell and back.
So when I sat down to watch this morning’s Group match against Germany I found myself partly wishing on the Socceroos a dose of World Cup pain of the kind more than familiar to those with more than three Qualification to their name. The kind of pain that scars and the kind of humiliation that brings realism to the over-confident. The ensuing 4-0 thrashing by Germany, including an unfair sending off and suspension for Cahill, is more than I would wish on my worst enemy, let alone my adopted country. Nevertheless, more realism and moderation might perhaps be the result.
The danger of a nation’s chief expression on the world stage being through sport is that winning becomes all important, and a lust to conquer for conquering’s sake can leave you with an unhealthy and uncharitable demeanour.
UPDATE: As a footnote, it was very amusing that while my comment above about Stephen Bradley was of course a joke, it wasn't too long before this the greatest of Australian sporting triumphs was actually exhumed by the media (in this case The Sydney Morning Herald) as an analogy for Australian footballing hopes:
"Where have you gone Steven Bradbury, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you … Eight years after the Australian skater famously triumphed for the most unlikely of Olympic gold medals, when the four competitors in front of him crashed on the last turn, the Socceroos find themselves still on their feet at the World Cup in South Africa."