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AUSTRALIA OUCH! THAT WILL BE BRAZIL THEN... 14-12-05
After weeks of build-up, the expectation around the globe was sky-high this week prior to the first stage of the World Cup finals, the theatrical ball juggling into old jam jars of the group draw in Leipzig.
Very well staged in typical well engineered, think of everything, Aryan clockwork efficiency and aided by the delicious leggy blonde Heidi Klum.
Dear Sepp Blatter,
As a man of vision, can you please change the rules so that Miss Klum is able to referee the final in Berlin in a French maid's outfit?
Obviously, it was a far more eagerly awaited event in the households of the competing thirty two nations who had made the bun fight. Was the telly even turned on North of Gretna Green, Big Yin?
The reported world-wide TV audience for the draw was over 320 million and if this is anything to go by, this particular finals series in Germany will smash every known viewing record on the planet for any event, sporting or otherwise.
That's extremely good news for the FIFA gnomes of Zurich, furiously shovelling dollars into the spare rooms of FIFA castle. Also for Kaiser Franz, the tournament sponsors and the numerous advertisers for sure. Hopefully, also for the rest of us in the quality of football and professional broadcast delivery.
Here in our beautiful Antipodean outpost, the tension rose as the draw progressed and collective expectation was just as high. Nails were gnawed, the beers were cold, the champers cooled in the ice bucket, ready.
Australia is already beginning to feel the squeezing tentacles of the World Cup entwine their way around the nation's psyche, inducing WC fever and fervour. A measure of this interest can be seen in the size of the TV audience for the play-off game in Sydney against Uruguay. The ethnic national broadcaster SBS TV, who usually don't measure a gnat's nano flicker on the viewing radar, collected an Australia wide audience of 4.5 million viewers, more than the Aussie Rules Grand Final.
Oh Yes! Finally, Australia feels like the rest of the world does about Association Football. At last the beautiful game is in the ascendancy and convicts, I mean converts, want to know all about Australia's chances. They are hooked on the theatre of Germany 2006, the tension, what could be, the possibilities.
Who will the Socceroos draw? How far can we go in the competition? Will Viduka and Kewell be up there with the great superstars at the end of the tournament? Does Skippy Schwarzer eat Bratwurst butties at Rockcliffe? Will Harry Cool have two pony tails or three by June?
Like the rest of the qualifiers, the Aussies discovered their World Cup fate this week and also discovered that it isn't easy when you are up there banging heads with the big boys. Immediately after drawing numero uno seed Brazil, the general consensus was one of shock and disbelief. Well we'll write that one off and maybe we can win the other two and get through to the knock out phase to create history. Fate has dealt us a cruel blow. Why us? We deserve better.
The broadcaster, SBS TV, who have done a marvellous job over the years promoting and championing the world game had a few of their experts talk about the Socceroo's chances and everybody wrote off the Brazil game as a fate accompli, a given. That'll be maximum points for Brazil then.
Wrong attitude, and Guus Hiddink's answer to a question about the "group of death" was a laconic and Ocker; "No Worries Mate!" He well and truly out Aussied the Aussies.
He knows better than anybody on the planet, with his coaching experiences in the latter phase of this competition, that anything can happen. Witness the heroics he cajoled and coached out of South Korea in the last tournament. He had that team playing out of their skins every game, raising their standard, albeit aided by a parochial and noisy crowd of Seoul souls.
Maybe Australia was lulled into a rose tinted malaise after a qualifying round series playing Oceania's non-entities. Expectation was fully fuelled by that glorious play-off defeat of Uruguay who let's face it, these days are a South American also-ran and a mid league power, albeit a two time winner of the old Jules Rimet trophy, which incidentally, is locked in Brazil's heavy metal riddled trophy cabinet for ever.
The cosseting has ended and Australia discovered that they are now playing with the VERY big boys. Thus, they have been seeded accordingly in the draw as the second lowliest ranked side of the thirty two.
By drawing Brazil, Croatia and Japan they've been given a tough and some say cruel introduction to the their first World Cup finals since 1974. As I've said it's "Let's concentrate on beating Croatia and Japan." That appears to be what the general consensus of combined opinion is around these parts.
Personally I think it's a brilliant draw for an underdog, with very little to complain about as this way, at the very least we get to see Australia playing one great and two good teams. All the teams in the group have obvious pedigree and, as an underdog, the Socceroos have a distinct advantage and a definite bonus as the pressure is off.
Especially so, against the pedigree of the greatest footballing nation on Earth and in World Cup history, the amazing Brazil, everybody's second WC team and the neutral observers favourite. With it's star riddled line up of people with 'o' at the end of their name, Samba football rhythm coursing through the veins of a people who are expected to win their sixth World cup at a canter and mesmerise the opposition. That's the same for every tournament.
Although history tells us that Brazil are the only non-European nation to have won a World Cup on European soil, Sweden 1958 and the greatest ever, Pele, exploding onto the scene. I personally have never seen the betting for a tournament so one sided as every neutral and most knowledgeable affiliates expect Brazil to win this competition with arrogant ease.
Now perversely, therein lies the actual advantage for the Skippies. Massive overwhelming pressurised expectation. The kind that made the wonder boy Ronaldo turn into a hyperventilating blubbering mess in Paris in France '98.
It's a cup competition with all it's sudden death implications and Australia should use this to their underrated advantage and treat every game as their own personal final and go out to prove a few people wrong. I'm telling you folks that Australia are a far better team than their FIFA ranking suggests and they can, if they hit their straps, be a surprise package in this tournament.
Having one of the best coaches on the planet in Guus Hiddink will do them no harm either, as this guy has a well proven pedigree at every level of the game and more than likely will be plying his expertise with Manchester United in the EPL next season. That's if the rumour mongrels are to be believed.
I'd rather see him managing England, who I will of course be principally supporting as I'm a 'Three Lions' die-hard in every sport.
I'll have to do my usual though and drag out the photo-copies of the Aussie and British passports, so I can wind up urine extracting Aussies if things don't go our way in the tournament.
Now where is that Juninho shirt?
Enough Said.
ErimusRed.
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