By Peter Holmes.
August 9 2006

It’s that time again! The one that rolls round religiously into the sporting calendar every four years. The World Cup Finals. Specifically the play-offs to decide the stragglers. A nation of sports mad Ockers homes it’s collective radar to focus on soccer and it’s national representatives on that field, the Socceroos. The Australian football team makes it’s usually dashed attempt at finally qualifying for the World Cup Finals, a feat they have only ever achieved on one single occasion. The 1974 finals in West Germany.

Is that a good omen one wonders, as the first World Cup Finals in the unified Deutschland takes place in mid 2006?

A nation of sports lovers and partakers expects every man to do his duty and gets wrapped up in the great fiesta of the World Cup and embraces our code as the Oceania winners play for a slice of glory against the fifth placed South American group qualifier. So. We have Australia versus Uruguay…yet again.

We watched the same scenario in motion four years ago when the light blues were too slick, too professional and too much for the Socceroos, prevailing to sink them in Montevideo with a display of promise that petered out in Korea/Japan in 2002.

The Socceroos, under the excellent part-time helm of the legendary Guus Hiddink, have some canny players scattered through the major leagues of Europe. On their day they are a force to reckoned with but they love a stumble at the last hurdle.

Play-off losses since 1990 include defeat to Scotland, Argentina, Iran and of course Uruguay. The litany of failure goes against the grain of Aussie sporting prowess and while all those other teams from the great southern land dominate their sports, in truth the world game is a far tougher nut to crack.

The question is asked frequently by Bruce Public and Sheila Inthestreet as to why, after winning the Oceania group comfortably, don’t we just qualify for the finals and not have to go through this play-off lottery bullshit….Mate?

Well, the Solomon Islands were the massive hurdle that needed to be overcome in the Oceania play-off, bit like our Beloved Boro qualifying for the Champions League by playing-off against the Sunday league ‘B’ team from the Yellow Rose after they’d all been to a stag night of strippers, tequila slammers and a slap up parmo.

After winning the home leg in Sydney by a mere 7-0, with our own Viduka scoring a couple and captaining the side, it was off to Honiara. In the second leg, the biggest danger for the Aussies, was getting walloped on the scone from falling coconuts on the steamy jungle fringed Honiara pitch or a dose of jock itch in the humid conditions. They won 2-1 for a combined 9-1 aggregate. It was a close run thing between the two best teams Down Under, which succinctly explains the state of Oceania football.

A World Cup has it’s undoubted effect. A nation who usually tries it’s collective damnedest to ignore the round ball code, completely and suddenly drops the derision and decides it’s time to embrace the old faggotball and engage anyone who cares to listen in conversation about various facets of the game they basically don’t understand.

So, as a diehard, you start getting bombarded from every quarter by the non-believers, asking questions about the rules and why this and why that?

Usually though it’s stuff like ‘what’s offside?’ Answer- Try an Open University thesis study course and when you understand the rule explain it to the majority of linesmen around the globe. Oops! Sorry, wrong title for the men with the flag, I mean assistant blind persons.

Why can only that bloke in the different coloured jumper pick up the ball? Answer- He bought it from the sports shop prior to the game and picks it up occasionally to check it’s still in good nick and doesn’t need blowing up because if he takes it home damaged he’ll get a clip round the ear of his mam.

Why do the players roll around so much when they are tackled? Answer- Mainly because their meat and two veg are injured, which is extremely painful, hence the term TACKLED.

Much has been made in the local press in the lead up to the cruncher with Uruguay about the form of Mark Viduka, especially with his two goal exploits in the UEFA Cup in midweek against Dnipro. Most Aussies think the guy is a veritable stratospheric superstar because of the way the media present their guff on him in these parts.

Remember, we're basically talking about the ill-informed here and while I reckon the big Croaussie has undoubted talent and sublime skill for a, shall we say, big boned laddie, he doesn’t possess the main requisite for true world-class greatness in the ErimusRed book of true genius. Consistency.

Regardless, much is expected in these parts of the V-bomber and I for one hope that his last chance at playing in a World Cup comes to fruition because this whole thing is greater than Viduka, Kewell, Emerton, Schwarzer, Cahill et all.

It’s about our great game and it’s profile Down Under. Australia needs to see it’s sporting prowess on view with the rest of the world. They crave success and recognition.

I know what Aussies are like, they’ll get sucked in to the whole culture of it all in Germany next year and finally our game can come to the fore and take it’s rightful place in the hearts of this great sporting nation.

Middlesbrough, as you learned folk are well aware, have had a long association with Australian players, with three of the present Socceroos squad playing in our ranks, namely Schwarzer, Jones and Viduka.

Craig Johnstone was an export from NSW who made it big in the English game and played some of his best football as a wholehearted midfielder at Ayresome Park under the stewardship of Wor Jackie and John Neill.

He was part of that blossoming young triangle of future stars, along with Mark Proctor and David Hodgson, which made those days on the terraces at Ayresome very entertaining to say the least and Roo became a firm favourite because of his wholehearted nature and his never say die attitude. Typically Australian in fact.

He of course, like the others, went on to pastures greener.

We’ve certainly come a long way since those darker days and I certainly hope that the Socceroos come a long way and qualify for the German World Cup. Besides it gives me something else to wind the Aussies up about.

Enough Said.
ErimusRed.