There will be no homecoming parade for the Socceroos. No reception at The Lodge, no keys given to any city.
There will be no homecoming event because there won’t be many coming home. After one last night together to assuage the heartache of their generally honourable discharge from the World Cup, on Sunday the Socceroos began to disperse to their distant corners of the world. Their homecoming will be to many homes.
The Socceroos pose for team picture before their game against Argentina.Credit:Getty Images
They won’t be together again in one place until the next FIFA window – openings built into club fixtures around the world to allow for international matches. There’s not one now until March. The Socceroos will surely arrange a friendly then, but it is not known where or against whom. Until then, they become so many dots on a map.
Much as it seems a shame not to leverage the enormous goodwill on display at Fed Square and its spawn in the last week, it’s simply not possible.
Thereby hangs a tale. The Socceroos generate rapport with Australia’s sporting public when they’re together, but that’s rare. The national cricket teams are forever playing someone somewhere, and in other high-profile sports, the stars when not playing together in internationals are under our noses.
The Socceroos name has powerful brand identity, the individuals who comprise it less so. When they’re out of sight, they recede from minds. In a loud and crowded market, that’s a fact of life.
Australia’s Craig Goodwin celebrates after scoring against France.Credit:AP
Since the Socceroos are with the Matildas the standard-bearers for their sport in Australia, that partly explains the wild fluctuations in their standing and popularity. When the Socceroos play as they did in Doha, they’re our No.1 team. Between gigs, their sport is very nearly niche.
No one is more acutely aware of this than the players themselves. In Doha, they proselytised as determinedly as they played. In interviews, they sublimated whatever pride they felt in individual feats to their missionary cause.
As if reading from a cue, instead of wallowing, they said that they hoped they were inspiring a new generation. They hoped to put stars in the eyes of 10-year-olds. They hoped to plant the seeds of a new generation of Socceroos.
They were full-time footballers and part-time recruiting officers. If you didn’t know better, you would have sworn they were on the sort of half-price bonus deal that some gyms offer if you sign up new members.
Mitchell Duke is delighted after scoring against Tunisia.Credit:AP
This was understandable. The Socceroos are the sport’s best advertisement, the players its best salespeople, the World Cup the ideal platform. They had their country’s rapt attention.
But it also reflects a more mundane truth. In our multi-code country, there is never an armistice in undeclared war for hearts and minds. Soccer’s reflex is try to seize moments. In Doha, it did.
Mathew Leckie rejoices as he scores the winner against Denmark.Credit:AP
The AFL betrayed this with its spectacularly hamfisted release of the round one fixture for next season while the Socceroos were playing. Round one! The Socceroos have made the AFL jittery.
In staying on message, the Socceroos were admirably disciplined. Yet you could not help wondering if they got to enjoy the deserved fruits of their success.
Humility is wonderful, but if ever there is a place to flaunt your spoils, it is the World Cup, and if ever there are spoils worth flaunting, it is World Cup goals. Each is an event; each needs its story told and celebrated. They ought to have been telling Australia about them as they will one day tell their grandchildren.
More generally, the Socceroos needed to be able to indulge in their exploits here. It was hard-won. Two wins, a goal in every match, toil and sacrifice made good, the future glimpsed. Together, they wrote a brilliant chapter in Australian soccer history.
Hopefully on their long return flights, the Socceroos get to smell the roses from the notional bouquet the nation has sent them. It will have to have been the thought that counted.
Meanwhile, if the A-League has any enterprise, it will bring forward the next Melbourne City-Adelaide United match, so that Qatar goalscorers Mathew Leckie and Craig Goodwin can be seen together on the same pitch again soon, as well as squaddies Jamie Maclaren and Marco Tilio.
The players talked, walked and sold a good game; it’s time to sell the players.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
