A remarkable 83,000 was the attendance at the Sydney Telstra Stadium to watch the 2nd leg World Cup Qualifier between Australia and Uruguay. For anyone who saw the match or highlights, it was quite stunning to see an extremely passionate Australian crowd rooting for the Australian national team, it looked like a sea of yellow, even thought there was a mature Uruguayan crowd. I'm just wondering... is Australia more embracing of soccer than the U.S.? Certainly, the U.S. deserves its merits, soccer is clearly big-time now in the States and it continues to grow... but would we ever be able to pull of 83,000 for a WC qualifier? Perhaps against Mexico, we would. Seeing the outpouring of support by the Australians for their team, in what is usually considered one of the few "non-soccer countries" in the world, it makes me think of something. And that is the fact that I get the feeling that Australia doesn't really have that segment of soccer-hostility within their sports society. Whereas in the U.S., a typical American would have real reservations about attending a pro soccer match, in part due to all the false labels they attribute soccer with, in which they picked up from the soccer-ignorant crowds. Anyone else notice this?
Yes, the Aussies embrace the game more than the US because, simply put, they are better people than we are...clearly there is no other explanation. We suck and don't deserve to be allowed into the World Cup ...ever! Good grief...this sounds like a kid asking his parents if they love them as much as their siblings.........ugh!
Whatever domestic problems you have at home, I don't care for. It's a fairly simple and entertaining topic from which I got from some candid observations. No need to get obnoxious and childish. If you don't care for it, just ignore it. Alrighty then.
What channel was it ? i watched the first leg on GolTV but i couldn't find the second one anywhere in US ....
Yes. Since Australia is a proud-sporting nation full of many successes; we have only one more hurdle to conquer; and that is Football. The qualifying win for us last night is pretty much the icing on cake. Football is Australia's sleeping giant. It is finally alive in Australia & we're loving every single bit of it.
Good win there, mate. So much for Recoba's statement: "It's Uruguay's divine right to be at the World Cup." Hope to see lots of Aussie, Aussie, Aussies at Germany. Good luck (unless you play us of course, then you're doomed).
Hey: I didn't see the full match. What I saw was the extended highlights of the match and post commentary from Fox Sports Argentina. They showed many shots from the crowd before and during the match.
You have to realize first that this was no ordinary world cup qualifier. Australia has been waiting for 32 years for this. They get close then collapse (2001). Australia's exposure to football is greater than ours and it has increased greatly in recent times due to the formation of their new league. Why did you put qualifier in Italics? Why are so concerned about non football fans? In 94 the World Cup was no flop. The country embraced it. Fans don't seem to care about football because we lack the great characters. Boxing had Ali, hockey had Gretzky, basketball had Bird/Magic/MJ. Soccer will have its day very soon.
http://www.soccertv.com/uru.cfm Says: SDD = Same Day Delay, D = Tape-delayed (by at least one day), R = Rebroadcast Thu Nov 17 06:00PM Pacific Thu Nov 17 07:00PM Mountain Thu Nov 17 08:00PM Central Thu Nov 17 09:00PM Eastern Length: 2 hr R GolTV (US) World Cup Qualifying Playoff - CONMEBOL/Oceania - 2nd Leg Australia vs Uruguay I'm thinking of making a special effort to see this game at the ole' mexican restaurant, but they close at 10pm. What I really want to see is the 80+K crowd cheering on the Socceroos, more than the upset on the field.
You make good points Juan. Aussies love sports in general, and they usually put up a good fight (compare the number of medals they won at the Athens Olympics in 2002 in relationship to their population, and you'll see they did extraordinarily well). 83,000 to me is a staggering figure when you consider how many showed up for the OFC qualifying tournament in June, 2004 in Adelaide. Of course, they had a lot of bad history to overcome to make it to WC2006, and Uruguay was part of that history. With to move to the AFC next year, I think Australia will definitely be in the mix for future World Cups, because their overall competition will be better. I do think the best the U.S. could have drawn under similar circumstances is in the 50-60,000 range, and at least half of those fans would have cheering for Uruguay !
I got goosebumps just watching the news coverage here in the States. I can't wait to watch the match! As a US fanatic I salute and congratulate the Socceroos, and wish them the best until they meet the USA!
That's not even U.S. vs. Mexico. 90 WC, 94 WC, 98 WC, 02 WC. Where was Australia? Overall, both nations embrace soccer, but only to a certain extend. I give it a tie. Oh, U.S. vs. China was seen by 40 million people. World Series, NBA Final by only about 15 million people. U.S. TV is paying FIFA $425 million for 2010 and 2014 World Cup.
Not disputing it. By the way... had those US crowd photos been of a home match vs. Mexico, more than half of that crowd would have been wearing green shirts.
Great article on the state of the sport in Australia. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17273845%5E601,00.html
the people of australia are so diverse... so many ethnicities... italians, greeks, british, asians who all LOVE their soccer.... with us making the world cup, i wouldnt be surprised to see the sports popularity EXPLODE in the next 6 months
Americans for the most part of xenophobic (before you bash me just go to work tommarow and test your co workers with basic geography questions) and really dont care about international competitions. Other than the olypmics there isnt a team sport that the whole country rallies around on the international stage b/c other than Haiti and D.R. noone plays "our" sports. Australia has Rugby and Cricket..they take those international matches for those sports seriously,,so the nationalistic fan base is already there
Hell, the Olympic team sports have completely fallen out of favor in America too. No one gives a damn about the basketball or hockey teams anymore (and it's not like their popularities were long lasting either).
Um, to say that Aussies embrace soccer more than the US of the evidence of one game is a bit disengenuous. The very last qualifier in Sydney just last September 3, 2005 against Solomon Islands, drew 16000. In Adelaide, before that, 2 June 2004 against Fiji, a mere 2200 fans. The draw to this game by all accounts was the event itself, with tons of media devoted to the rivalry, smack talk and poor trreament from their last visit to Uraguay, coupled with the hiring of a quality coach, the implementation of the A League and 20 something years of failing to qualify. I have a few mates who've been die hard Marconi supporters for atleast 10 years back in Sydney. They are much less optimistic. They say that this is excitment is not sustainable and most fans were just "wally's" that were caught up in the moment. They will not likley go on to support the A league which is already seeing attendance declines. They feel the league will not continue to thrive when their marquee player is an overaged guy like Yorke, who admitidly brings them in, but the overall quality of play is poor and any atmoshphere is lost in the large stadiums. They are also realists when talking of the Aussies chances in the WC. They deem a second round as a great acheivement. All that stuff sounds painfully familiar. p.s. the US is NOT xenophobic. If the US is xenophobic, what does that make Japan? LOL! lousy education in geography does not equate to a xenophobe.
I recently worked with a guy from Australia. I once asked him about the popularity of soccer down under and he said something to the effect that there are people in the country who like the sport but it's definitely not as widely followed as some of the other sports such as Aussie rules footy and rugby. He himself was into cricket. Although not a perfect comparison, I think Australia and the USA are kind of similar in a number of ways in this context. Both have sports-mad cultures including widely popular domestic sports on the scene. Both societies have diverse ethnic populations made up of people from around the world, some of whom embrace soccer. Both countries have newly-established domestic top-flight professional soccer leagues. Soccer appears to be making substantial gains in both nations.
when it comes to sports, the US is definitely xenophobic hopefully the humiliating failure of their NBA stars at the olympics will give them, and their fans, some added incentive to do well at the world cup next year
The difference is that there is a lot of visible, outright hostility toward the sport in the US, but not in Australia.
Reminds you of France, ain't it? You speak English anywhere in the streets of Paris - you get ridiculed. Same thing with US and football.