Yes this, plus I think the converse is also true of the Golden Generation. In the years after their success I think many were seen to either ignore or be dismissive of the A-League, winning them no love with A-League fans.
I was about to write this before I went back and checked. I am shocked to see how many of the '06 squad ended up in the A-League at the end of their career. Only Viduka, Schwarzer, Chipperfield, Bresciano and Kalac never played in the league (and Kalac coached here). That’s 78% of them that did – higher than the 76% of the current team!
I’m definitely more familiar with most of the current Australian squad than I was with most of the 2006 squad. Though I was only 13 in the last year of the NSL and didn’t have much time to get into it. But I feel even the general football public is more familiar with AL-based Aussie footballers than they were in 2004.
I think a couple of them may have avoided playing here because it may have highlighted that … they weren’t quite as good as the public thought they were. They weren’t that head and shoulders above everyone else that reputation has it.
Outside of Kewel and Viduka, they played in 2nd tier leagues or 2nd tier teams in 1st tier comps.
It’s that extra lttle bit of drive, luck and pre-opening up of Africa that got them there.
I think the perception at the time of AL fans was that these guys were really treating it as the last possible destination. If all other avenues had dried up then ok, may as well have a little hit and giggle at home.
Compare that with guys like Duke and Goodwin, who have come and gone multiple times from the league. There’s no sense that these guys are disrespecting it by doing that. Just finding their level. It goes a long way to building a rapport with the local fanbase.
ok, the perhaps this reflects well on the a-league that it is more prominent than the NSL with people associating players with their a-league clubs rather than the GG’s stints in the NSL?
I hated football growing up for no reason other than my father taught me to hate it and tease kids who play it. In 2005 a bunch of my mates organised a party to watch the Uruguay qualifier. They explained the way qualification and the the tournament worked and the history of not qualifying. I didn’t know who a single player was but I enjoyed the match and continued to follow the Australian fixtures at the 2006 World Cup while not having any interest in a domestic competition. After the tournament I ended up learning a reasonable amount of the players names in the squad through mainstream media and TV.
3 years later, on our routine bus to the city on a Friday night, one of the lads said he’d bought us all tickets to the soccer. Still not converted, I complained about how shit soccer was and said I wouldn’t have a bar of it. Eventually I arrived in drunk in the city and just followed everyone’s lead and headed to the stadium. Upon entering the stadium, to my absolute horror, I realised it wasn’t a national team match at all but an A league match. The fucking A league. I knew nothing about a domestic league anywhere in the world but I thought the the A league was absolute horse shit.
I will never forget walking down through the Cove and watching the net bulge and moments later it raining beer. I yelled and sang my guts out all night. The atmosphere was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I was converted. I was there on Valantines day and at etihad later that season.
The national team converted me and made me an A league fan in 2006. I’m sure the national team from 2022 will convert a few more.
I’ve had a fair few conversations with colleagues who otherwise don’t follow “the soccer”. In each dialog I mentioned to that I’m going to a game this weekend that will feature several of the Socceroos squad (Redders, Leckie, Maclaren, Tilio) and they were genuinely surprised and interested to know more about the A League and which teams the squad play for.
I said the same recently as well. Even if he isn’t the head coach, he’s passionate about developing Aussie players and he can only do well by remaining involved in national team structure. I think though, that he really identifies as a coach and has ambitions to fulfil before he’d slot into a role like that.
I think part of it could be that they wanted to hold on to their hero status rather than come and play in Australia where rival club fans might end up hating them, or at least give them shit. I mean, that did happen with Cahill and Kewell for example.
Maybe I’m seeing with rose coloured glasses here but I think one big positive that stems from Arnold is that despite the fact that we didn’t try to dominate the ball and had less than 40% of possession, it didn’t feel like we were just playing negative football and parking the bus. When we got the ball we tried to attack. We played on the counter when there was a transition in the offing but also tried to build from the back when we had the ball in Ryans hands.
It felt like we knew we didn’t have the talent to dominate so you do what you can when you can and dig in when you cant.
Psychologically I think that makes a massive difference for the players & for people watching.
Add in Tony Vidmar who had had a lot of NSL games for Adelaide City but did not go to Germany only due to health reasons - and later came back to play in the A League.
Also some of the 2006 married wives from the countries where they played their overseas careers. Not everyone wants to leave their own country to go to live in their spouse’s one across the globe.