Poetry

Well what a magnificent display of football. 'Football' isn't a good word for it, especially in Australia when it puts the game on a par with Rugby and AFL as an artform, because football at its most virtuosic is so far superior to any other ball game that it should be considered alongside ballet or jazz rather than alongside these games.

I know I overuse hyperbole and um... bullshit, but I'm very serious here. You can't be a professional soccer player without having played all your life with very good coaching. The latter is still rare in Australia but steps have been taken to begin to rectify this - needless to say you wouldn't let a volunteer parent teach your child ballet or piano. In the great football countries, where the game is understood by the media and the public, it's virtually against the law.

To merely lambast the Socceroos for losing that match so convincingly, as much of Australian media is doing, essentially demonstrates ignorance. That German team is extraordinary (and yes, I must retract all my desperate attempts at optimism and say I was being ridiculous). It's hard to explain what I mean, especially because I'm a novice myself at this, but I'll have a go.

When you watch a team like Germany (and coming up I'd guess, Brazil, Italy and Spain), I encourage people to have a look around at what's happening off the ball. Try to see the 'group mind' I tried to describe a little while ago. When the ball is passed, try, just for a change, to watch what the passer does next rather than the person who receives the ball. Further, try to see what the third person in a triangle does at the same time. Watch the shape move, then (this is much easier with a live game) take a wider view still and watch the other shapes on the field respond in kind. Quite aside from the obscenely difficult skills of accurate passing, trapping a speeding ball and controlling a ball at speed, for a team to reach a high level tactically, as the Germans have, is a truly high art, to the extent that in a World of millions of soccer teams, it is extremely rare for it to be really there.

Of course it is depressing for a patriot to watch their team get so fully outclassed, but by half time I had moved from disappointment to a growing, awe-struck admiration of what the German team could do. They are no longer athletes. They are poets. More accurately perhaps, they are jazz musicians jamming. They were beautiful and I loved them for their beauty. I know not everyone gets into this - football for its own sake, for beauty, but I put it out there as a suggestion. When you see it, you will never regret it again any more than someone who's acquired a taste for opera will ever regret it.

The greatest regret for us from that game is not the scoreline of course, but the loss of Timmy Cahill through a red card (probably not deserved). Ghana and Serbia are much more realistic opposition for the Socceroos, but Timmy's loss will make it damn hard.

Anyway, our mighty Socceroos were roundly outclassed. We may talk about the 'dream generation' of 2006, but Australia has never played close to that standard. We may get there one day, but only if we want to make the effort as a nation. I hope we do.

I'll write more later. Still struggling with internet and photos.