On Not Having A Sense Of Perspective

Sure Australia’s World Cup qualification is a great thing. I honestly hope it does a lot to lift the profile of the sport down under.

However, it seems the Football Federation Australia chief John O’Neill is losing his perspective in calling for a tri-nations like football tournament. Australia will now have the World Cup and the Asian Nations tourament as serious sporting platforms. A three-way tournament with South Korea and Japan might sound enticing, but would be meaningless. The tri-nations works because it takes the place of a Continental competition; but football already has that. Rather than pointless fantasies that are out of step with the footballing world, O’Neill should be focussing on securing more Asian competition for Australian clubs as well as securing a european training base for future friendlies.

But perhaps the most galling aspect of O’Neill’s statements is the claim that Australian coaches could help develop the game in Asia. If anything, the opposite would be true. The Asian powerhouses, and even developing teams tackled the problem of poor, corrupt and out of date coaching a long time ago and if anything, their youth programmes could teach Australia a thing or two.

Maybe Australia’s new football mandarins should be a little more tactful with their Asian neighbours and not get carried away with recent victories. Qualifying for the finals is great, but a small acehivement in comparison to sucessfully hosting the event and reaching the final stages.