Jackson Irvine was a fanatical Socceroos fan before he was a player, and he still is. When shown footage of the euphoria in Federation Square immediately after Australia’s 1-0 triumph over Tunisia on Saturday, his eyes widened.
“Jesus Christ. It’s hard even to … I wish I was there as well. I wish I could do both,” he said. “That just looks absolutely incredible. And I hope every single one of them has had a night they’ll remember for the rest of their lives like I’ve had as a fan. Special.″
A group hug for the Socceroos and for the nation.Credit:AP
Elsewhere in the Al Janoub stadium, Socceroos coach Graham Arnold was recalling his pre-match address. “I said to the boys, let’s put a smile on the nation’s face,” he said. “There’s two teams that bring the nation together, and that’s the Socceroos and the Matildas. When the Socceroos play at World Cups, AFL fans, rugby league fans, cricket fans, they all become football fans.″
They certainly do. And they all had smiles on their faces on Saturday night as bright as the flares in Fed Square. We were all Socceroos. But the perennial challenge for Australian soccer is to harness this outpouring of love. It’s as tricky as ever.
The contours of the Australian sporting landscape means that outside World Cups, the Socceroos can only ever be spasmodically in the nation’s consciousness. Most play overseas, but for relatively low-profile clubs, some play in the A League, which is still niche, and as a team they hardly ever play at home. They’re diverse, and they’re dispersed.
For devotees of soccer and the Socceroos, this means a long-distance, middle-of-the-night relationship, and those don’t work for everyone. It means that casuals do not so much jump off the bandwagon as fall off as it abruptly moves on. As an in-vogue expression has it: you cannot be what you cannot see.
Jackson Irvine (right) tussles with Tunisia’s Issam Jebali.Credit:AP
That’s no one’s fault particularly; it’s a fact of the global sporting economy. When this suddenly stirring World Cup adventure ends for the Socceroos and they go their various ways, cricket will take over in public affection in Australia – or at least attention – and after that the other football codes. It’s a long-standing rhythm.
This will jar on soccer people, but the names of Australia’s most recent football heroes will become like the name of the last Melbourne Cup winner: just beyond the tips of tongues of casual fans. I’ve seen and heard it before.
Because of this remoteness, Australians like the idea of the Socceroos as much as the embodiment. It means they can love them unconditionally at a time like this, but also leave them without compunction. It makes them an ideal bandwagon. This bugs the evergreens, understandably.
There was a moment when this paradigm was subverted. The 2006 Socceroos were Australia’s best-ever team. Most played for big European clubs with substantial followings in Australia. They’re heroes still; Irvine for one still turns his head when one passes. Their heyday coincided with the heady days of the beginning of the A-League.
Harry Kewell celebrates the goal against Croatia that effectively put Australia through to the knock-out stage in 2006.Credit:Vince Caligiuri
Crucially, they won. They beat Japan for Australia’s first-ever World Cup win – 13-year-old Irvine was there – and they became the first and only team to advance to the knock-out stage of a World Cup (as it happened, thanks to the theatrics of Italy’s Fabio Grosso, it became more king hit than knock-out).
On Saturday, this column referred to Jean-Paul Sartre’s adage that in sport, everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team. Equally, it might be said that in sport, everything is simplified by winning.
But in the world game, on the world stage, it’s diabolically difficult. Until Saturday, the Socceroos had only managed to do it twice. This win was against lesser opposition, but should not be underestimated because of that. In the stadium, it was genuinely spine-tingling.
“Every Australian team in history has been underestimated,” said Craig Goodwin, a revelation in this tournament. “That will always be the case from where we are. It’ll always be the case, I think, in the future. And it’s something that I think helps us and something that we relish, being the underdog.″
Socceroos fans, present and future, in Qatar.Credit:AP
This team is young, multifarious and likeable. It’s not yet great, but it’s done a great thing. One win won’t be the key to Australian soccer’s fundamental existential conundrum. But it sure beats not winning. If only for a moment, it unified the nation as only the Socceroos, Matildas and perhaps the men’s and women’s cricket teams sometimes can.
Denmark on Wednesday might bring all back to earth. But Australian soccer must hope that some who were uplifted stay airborne for good. It’s happened before.
“I’ve been a part of those kinds of moments before as a fan,” said Irvine. “The fact that we’ve created that for somebody else is just too special to even kind of put into words. You want to just go again and do another one. Imagine the next one you’re in – that’s what you’ve got to take from it.”
