Optimism is an all too familiar feature of Australian football.
For followers of the Australian game, the feeling of ecstasy that emanated from those across the country at 10:59pm AEDT last night was accompanied with sheer disbelief.
A first World Cup Finals win in 12 years. Few would have possessed the foresight to envision this on March 24th 2022, where Australian football was on the precipice of entering a potentially catastrophic phase.
On that date Australia faced Japan on a rainy Thursday evening at Stadium Australia, requiring consecutive wins against the Samurai Blue and Saudi Arabia to progress automatically to their 5th consecutive World Cup finals.
What was an adequate representation of the performance on the park was the attendance, a measly 41,852 supporters turned up the unofficial home of the Socceroos with a 2-0 in heartbreaking circumstances, piling the pressure on coach Graham Arnold with some within Football Australia even reportedly prepared to sever ties ahead of the impending playoffs in June.
At that time, doom-laden language was utilised to discuss the status of the domestic leagues, now independent from Football Australia. Within the first full season under the ownership of the Australian Professional Leagues, a season riddled with COVID interruptions resulted in a attendance average of 5,602, a far cry from seasons previous.
Struggles for television ratings, teething issues with streaming partners and a disenfranchisement for the game amongst many circles saw yet another false dawn set upon the backdrop of a league once defined by its untapped potential.
Come November 2022, things are just a tad different.
Following Mitchell Duke’s opener, Federation Square erupted in a manner some consider indescribable within the sporting zeitgeist of Australia.
“For a moment it went apocalyptic” described Copa90 presenter and Australian Eli Mengem.
Many of those who contributed to the raucous atmosphere at Federation Square were teenagers and young adults, a generation that was deprived of a World Cup Finals win up until yesterday.
Of course the circumstances and feeling that accompanies all three World Cup Finals victories inherently possesses differing circumstances and emotions, yet for some supporters in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD, this was their Kaiserslautern moment.
In a similar vein to the Kaiserslautern victory, the momentum sustained from the 2006 Round of 16 exit correlated with sustained growth of the then-fledgling A-League.
Regardless of the outcome against Denmark at 2am AEDT on Thursday morning, the Australian Professional Leagues and Football Australia possess an undeniable blueprint to further success, and they also have resources needed to facilitated a prosperous A-Leagues and FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The unbridled joy experienced by supporters of the country must be utilised as a vehicle to direct their passion towards local clubs within the A-Leagues and NPLs and to continually permeate the notion that Australia possesses a pure football culture.
Harnessing momentum within a footballing paradigm following a courageous Socceroos or Matildas achievement such as the victory against Tunisia has been something incredibly difficult for the game to achieve in recent times, most notably the Asian Cup victory of 2015 on home soil.
Football Australia have identified the need to act on the front foot for the Matildas, through the establishment of the Legacy ’23 program aimed at ensuring lasting and tangible benefits in the form of infrastructure following the FIFA Women’s World Cup next year.
Yet the Australian Professional Leagues and Football Australia embody responsibility to ensure that the achievements of our multicultural, strong, and defiant Socceroos at this World Cup can be sustained through innovative marketing campaigns, consultation with supporters and identifying a unique market segment that holds the key generating the next generation of football supporters within this country.
So we can be optimistic, and we will be optimistic in our chances of generating a draw or a win against Denmark to progress to the Round of 16.
Yet regardless of the result, the Socceroos have made history. Another chapter written.
The uniting force of the Socceroos at a World Cup Finals is inconceivable at times, and the domestic game in Australia has the potential to follow suit.
Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images