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| WELCOME>NEWS>OPINION | ||||||||
LES MURRAY SOCCEROOS DESERVED BETTER~19/02/03~
Near the end, an Australian from the press core asked John Howard if he was going to Upton Park for the game. No, sorry, came the reply. He had family commitments. The day after the game, the Prime Minister again fronted the press, this time with his British counterpart, Tony Blair. Again, in the midst of all the argument over Saddam and how he should be dealt with, and with the world watching, there was no mention by our PM of what the boys did to England in the East End the night before. Maybe next to the crisis over Iraq, and the tragic way it may play out, the football match was a triviality, as indeed it should have been. But given John Howard’s track record in embracing other Australian sporting triumphs, and his omnipresence at them, the oversight seemed even more out of place than would have seemed the mention of it. Watching it, as a football fan, one felt a little lonely. Of course John Howard could not have possibly understood the game’s, not to say the victory’s, historic impact. He is, after all, the leader of a cricket country and this was a football match. Perhaps he should have been better briefed. Perhaps he should have been told by his advisors that, hey, winning the Ashes is one thing, but beating the English at football is quite another. That Ricky Ponting slamming Nasser Hussain is pretty good, but Harry Kewell humiliating Rio Ferdinand is quite something else. If he only knew. If he could only see what this meant to the English who, already sick to the back teeth of Aussie sporting triumphs, had to watch this game and then go home to watch Neighbours and wake the next morning to the usual tabloid depictions of Kylie Minogue’s sweet backside. ‘Do they rule the bloody world?’ asked one broadsheet columnist the day after the game. Of course, the Aussies do not rule the world, even in sport, and the gloating that has gone on since that game has been ill-mannered at best and misplaced at worst. It is the manner of the victory, not whom it was against, that should matter most. Sure, taking on the English, rather than someone else, inspired the Australians to levels above the norm and that was a major factor in the outcome and the performance. But that was only part of the recipe. It was not the dish. What the match suggested was that an Australian football team, given the right circumstances, the right motivation, the right selections, the right tactics, can turn it on and can perform by the measure of the best of international standards. The circumstances and the likely motivation had already promised much before the game. The need to make amends for Uruguay was alive. The majority of the Australian players were from the English leagues and they were hungry to make their point against their every-day colleagues. Farina picked the best possible team and devised the perfectly right tactics. And then there was Harry Kewell, who chose on this night to prove, like he has not done before, that he is one of the world’s foremost footballers. The SBS pundits resounded in unison that Kewell’s virtuoso act was the best they had ever seen in an Aussie shirt. It was hard not to agree. There was something about Harry, something in the wind, well before the game that hinted there might be a thing to savour in store. When he missed Leeds United’s league match the previous week, the alarm bells began to shriek. Then, more worrying, he missed the mid-week Cup match against Gillingham. Were we to experience again the heartbreak of our finest ever talent doing a no-show in a high-profile international? Far from it. Kewell, in fact, missed those games in order to save himself for the match against England. When Terry Venables pleaded with him to pull out of the international in order to nurse his hamstring, El Tel got a rejection. By the time we found out that Kewell had a chest virus but was intent on playing anyway, it became clear. Harry meant business. He was intent on using this stage to show the English the whites of his teeth and to silence, for good, those in Australia who had doubted his commitment and worth to his country. He was fixing to put on a show and he did. From the opening minute he tormented them, taunted them, cajoled them and confused them. Smartly cast in a free role, as he is with Leeds under Venables, he did as he pleased. By the time he out-witted, and out-muscled, England’s most expensive defender to score his trademark individual goal, it was no more than what we should have expected. Of course the supporting cast did its bit. Viduka was a terrific foil, drawing defenders and taking them out of Kewell’s path. Lazaridis neutralised Beckham, forcing him to abandon his flank time and again. Emerton was worrisome on the right while at the back Moore and co. marshalled an iron vault. And for Farina’s part, the selections, the tactics and the substitutions were faultless. Most admirable of all, there was no negativity, no overdue caution, no obvious instruction from the bench that England was to be feared as a superior opponent. What has since been lamented is that Eriksson, having sold his soul to the forces of darkness, had turned the game into a farce. Perhaps, but only from an English perspective. For Australia, this was a football match, where the aim was to score more goals than the opposition and win the game. You know, like in a cricket Test or a Davis Cup tie. England’s problem was not Australia’s problem. Indeed England’s main problem and mistake, one could suggest, was its assumption that Australia would treat the game as a friendly. Australians tend not to do that. Was it the ushering in of a new era for the Socceroos? Probably not. Australia will play other opponents, some stronger, some weaker. It will win some and lose some. I recall the Socceroos beating one of the Olympic favourites, Yugoslavia, in the Seoul Games and losing to Fiji a few weeks later. A smart Australia will take care not to walk away from Upton Park thinking it has conquered Everest, for it had not. But it has climbed a fairly tall mountain, none the less. It beat an enemy that loomed more fearsome than most others, given our cultural preoccupation with the football might of mother England. And it won deservedly, courageously and with style. It’s just a pity the Prime Minister missed it.
Something you would like to see changed? email Phil King. Get him to fix it. |
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