Suncorp Stadium, 7th October 2006
It was a full moon of course. The drama, indeed the tragedy, was perfect, Homeric even. Arnold's end, in my view.The atmosphere at the Suncorp Temple was magic from an hour before. The three children with me, my son Jacob and his mates Morgan and Stavros, were beaming glory and light under the moon, along with the other 50,000. The night was as balmy as only Brisbane knows how to be. Beautiful. Sublime even.
The moon, climate and crowd were not the only sublime thing tonight. The football was truly glorious. Truly, I underestimated the Australian Socceroos. I am guilty in fact of even having moments of thinking they were a bit lucky in the World Cup. I'm on record as thinking they'd lose tonight 3 nil. I was wrong. Australia dominated, and dominated consistently, with grace, style, flair and beauty. I mean it. I was in heaven for 90 minutes.
But I reckon I was right about one thing. This business of replacing players as a matter of farewell ritual was ridiculous and it cost us the game. Here is the drama: our goal scorer, Tony Popovic, was replaced, for no tactical reason, and the very person who replaced him, on his first touch, scored a home goal against us. Hubris. Schwarzer, who let the goal through, had also only come on minutes before. Stupidity. Stupidity and arrogance. Hubris.
So this was their farewell? Am I the only one who reckons they should have been farewelled by some intelligent leadership (from the coach) which would have with virtually no doubt at all won the game, and maybe a cool ticket tape parade or something? This ridiculous ritual plan, replacing tactical acumen, ruined the night for the players, including the retiring ones, and the fans.
Graham Arnold, fuck off. You are a dickhead. Beauchamp, I don't blame you mate. Well I do - you fucked up, as did Schwarzer - but dumb things happen. I really blame your dim-witted, 'people person' (arse licking) coach. We should have won tonight, but Arnold was more interested in us all feeling nice than winning the bloody game.
It was a fantastic game of football. And fantastic drama. Let the passion, love, blame, guilt, tears, blood and gore flow, flow, flow. Thankyou Socceroos. A draw is good anyway. Glory to you all.
Labels: Socceroos
posted by Hamish Alcorn at 10:46 pm
2 Comments:
hear hear hamish, the same sort of indulgence by the "old boy's network" again cost us a result, better rankings and a sour taste in the mouth after we had played so well. Don't blame swartzer or Beauchamp (youve heard of a "hospital" pass, well this was a hospital sub), it was just bad management. Send them off with a lap of the park instead. Oh, and Kalac- shut the fuck up.
It was interesting seeing the replay after being there. The ref decided against 3 clear penalties to Australia. The first was right below us in the openning minutes a dive into the body of Skoko. Then a hand ball. Then Timmy Cahill was pushed out of the way. (I was worried about the Cahill hand in the face but the replay also showed that was a simulation).
But I think Thompson dives. You don't get 5 penalties in 6 games for nothing. You make your own luck - run at them and dive.
However, the replay clearly showed that the stiker pushed Beauchamp's head into the ball. It was clever and an outrage.
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