Football and Flip-Flops: The Global Game down under...

Before 2006 the Aussie attitude to football was Pick that shit up and run with it... then they went to there second World Cup. There first World Cup was in Germany in 1974 was OK, they came last in there group but did draw with Chile and there amateurism and skin tight aussie rules short endeared them to the German public and the World footballing community. Then they disappeared from the global footballing map, with football's popularity sinking so low that the countries FA is forced to video it's games and sell them. While the general population watched there blonde heroes chase an egg around an oval like giant yellow birds of pray, leaping over each other before kicking the egg through the posts. They poured over cricket like a swarm of, well, crickets and loved to see the wallabies throw themselves to the ground in rugby. In every other sport they were unstoppable. People who played football where looked down on like someone who pissed themselves during a showing of a Teletubies episode. There national team remained on the fringes, roaming nomads who met with mighty empires occasionally with the mighty tribes of the world. They were a bit like the MLS in America, most new it was there but didn't pay any attention to it. They preferred watching there own version of football, there own version of cricket and a sport similar to rugby in that the aim of the game seems to be kill the opposition and you win (Ice Hockey). Sure they surfaced occasionally, beating England at Upton Park 3-1 and of course the 31-0 humbling of American Samoa but these were mere blips in a relationship akin to Ahly and Zamalek (possibly the greatest rivalry in world football) constant hate with occasional spells of cooperation, and when I say occasional I mean rarer than natural green hair or Fernando Torres scoring for Chelsea.

At least version of not-football-but-called-football has some for a kicking in it...

Then came the 2006 World Cup in ironically Germany again (though this time whole Germany and not just the west) and did well, suddenly the country that saw football as something that should be licked off the pavement by people who dared play it using there tongues. But they beat Japan and with the nation hooked huge waves of people got up at hours so ungodly that god himself is still rubbing the sleep from his eyes and dreaming of heading back to that floating bed in the sky with the holy mug of Antioch filled with the nectar of the gods that is coffee. Though they lost to Brazil the Socceroo faithful stayed, well, faithful and saw the draw with Croatia give them a birth in a the second round and the country went delirious (well probably) they were drawn with mighty Italy, the eventual champions, after holding them for 90 minutes the Spanish ref added on 6 minutes of added time and in the fifth of those Grosso (who scored the goal that took them to the final) threw himself to the flaw with a dive so obvious that it made Junior Barranquilla (see Top 10 Mad Refereeing decisions) blush. They scored the penalty and Australia where out, the global footballing community were outraged and Australia endeared themselves to there own fans and those across the world. They moved to Asia as they were finding Oceania to easy (I mean who wouldn't) and the Socceroo's had arrived on the world stage.

They'll go out in the next round, I'm sure...

Four yours later in South Africa they got thumped by the German's, drew against the Ghanains and beat the Serbian's, unable to reproduce there efforts of 4 years previously but still an impressive performance for a team who in 2005 had been there countries least favourite national sports team, behind: cricket, rugby, tennis and tiddlywinks. Just over a year ago they came second in the AFC Asian Cup, losing to Japan in the final to a goal scored by a Korean. However the future looks bright for football down under, over 90,000 fans packed themselves into the MCG for a recent friendly against Greece, more than you'd ever get for a friendly in England or even Brazil, you never know maybe soon, football will consign Aussie Rules to village fates and old people's homes filled with nostalgic's...