Socceroos turning into soccer whose?

In a country where soccer has relied on ethnic support, Padraig Collins finds that Australia’s qualification has unexpected complications.

Most countries who have qualified for the World Cup have 23 players going to Germany. Not so Australia. There are 26 Australians bound for Germany; but three of them play for Croatia. This would be less of an issue except the Aussies and Croats were drawn together in Group F, along with Japan and tournament favourites Brazil.

Joey Didulica, Josip Simunic and Anthony Seric are the Australians who chose to play for their parents' country of birth. Further complicating matters, six of the Socceroos' squad, including captain Mark Viduka, also have Croatian ancestry, but declared for their own country of birth.

Seric was infamously picked in both squads when the countries last met. Both he and Simunic are graduates of the Australian taxpayer-funded National Sports Institute.

Seric said recently: "I'll be there for both countries. And even if I don't sing the Australian anthem, I'll definitely hum it". The Australian fans in Stuttgart's Gottlieb-Daimler Stadium may do more than hum at him. Seric, Simunic and Didulica might just be seen as the biggest turncoats in Australian history since Aaron Sherritt betrayed his cohorts in the Kelly gang.

Intertwining ethnicity and the likelihood that whoever wins this match will make the next round should make it one of the highlights of the group stage.

In a country where Australian Rules, both rugby codes and cricket dominate, this very ethnicity, the 25 per cent of the population born abroad, is what sustained soccer through the bad days. But they made it worse too. Clubs were named for their ethnic origins; not only was there both a Sydney Croatia and Melbourne Croatia, there was also South Melbourne Hellas and Sydney Olympic for the Greeks, Preston Makedonia for the Macedonians and Marconi for the Italians.

The football authorities made them change their names when the Balkans exploded in 1991/92, but old enmities bite hard. When Perth Glory's Bobby Despetovski flashed a Serbian victory symbol during a game in 2001 against Melbourne Knights (formerly Croatia), he sparked a riot. Something drastic needed to be done, and it was.

In 2003 the government withheld funds from what was then called Soccer Australia until all its directors resigned. Australia's richest person, and football fanatic, Frank Lowy, was installed as chairman of the renamed Football Federation Australia (FFA) and he headhunted former Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill as CEO. They had three immediate aims: to establish a viable national football league; to take Australia out of the Oceania Confederation and into Asia; and to qualify for the World Cup.

That they have achieved all three speaks volumes for their talents and decision making. So much so that when last year Macedonian and Greek Australian fans fought at a game in Melbourne and Serbs battled Croats during a Sydney match, it looked like the past, not the future of football in Australia. (Both incidents happened at state league games. There are no ethnic-based teams in the new national A-League).

The smartest move Lowy and O'Neill made was appointing Dutchman Guus Hiddink as Socceroos coach. Hiddink led his home country into fourth place in the 1998 World Cup; South Korea to fourth in 2002; and was instrumental in Australia qualifying for the first time in 32 years. Little wonder Roman Abramovich is picking up the tab for Hiddink's contract to coach Russia next.

Socceroos legend Tony Vidmar (veteran of one successful and three failed World Cup qualifying campaigns), is the only player who was expected to be going to Germany who is definitely out. In strict testing brought in following the tragic death of Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe in a Confederations Cup semi-final in 2003, Vidmar was found to have an irregular heart rhythm. His football career is almost certainly over.

However, Australia are not injury free. Hiddink is unsure if Liverpool winger Harry Kewell, who was pivotal in the dramatic qualification play-off victory over Uruguay last November, will be ready for Australia's World Cup opener against Japan on June 12th.

"I am a little bit concerned how his development will be. He can be fit just before the starting game but what we are now doing here is not just building up the physical condition but working on tactics and strategies towards the first game - I think he can recover, but it's always a pity when you are not starting with the full 23 (man squad)," he said.

Another major injury worry is Everton's Tim Cahill. Hiddink said Cahill "is doing his own programme and we hope to have him fit as soon as possible. He is working hard on his recovery, I will see how his development will be in Mierlo (Australia's Dutch training camp)."

John Aloisi, whose scored the decisive shoot-out penalty against Uruguay, is also injured but likely to recover in time for the Japan game.

The lack of these talismanic players did not, however, deter a record crowd of 98,000 turning up to see the Socceroos beat European champions Greece 1-0 in Melbourne last Thursday week.

Hiddink was amazed at the turnout for a friendly fixture. "The crowd is a reward for the team and what they achieved, and it shows that in this country (where) football was the number four sport, how much it has improved. It (Australia) can be one of the countries in which football has developed in a very short time to maybe be the number one sport."

Could it be Australians are finally taking to the beautiful game? Geoff Parmenter, FFA's head of marketing, communication and strategy, thinks so.

"We're really seeing ourselves with an opportunity to invite people to jump on the bandwagon and experience what it's like to support a genuinely representative national team playing on the biggest stage there is in sport. Australians love that," he said.

"We're a little country on the far side of the world and when we get a Cathy Freeman (400 metres gold medallist in the 2000 Olympics) or Wallabies when they're playing well, we love to jump on board.

"You don't get a bigger bandwagon than this one and we're happy to have them. That's the opportunity really that we're trying to grasp; showcasing that bandwagon and inviting people to get on board and see if we can't hang on to them," he said.

Ultimately, what will taking part in the World Cup mean for football in Australia? "I'll call you in July," laughs Parmenter.

"We'll be straight into the pre-season for A-League at the back of the World Cup . . . the Socceroos are playing in an Asian Cup qualifier on August 16th, five weeks after the World Cup finishes . . .

"We can't guarantee how this team is going to perform. What we can pretty much be certain of is those Australian fans that are over there (in Germany), and the millions that engage with the tournament here, are going to have a great three or four weeks," he said.

Football fan Andrew Myers of Brisbane is more cautious. "I don't think by itself, that just making this World Cup will change things in a major permanent way.

"But if it opens the door for more Australians to play overseas and if we also get to the World Cup next time, all of that could work together to make a big change."