Can't tell if you're trying to be gross (I can take a guess) but she's actually bring ing the soccer ball to my partner's birthday tomorrow so will show her basics like trapping, shielding, passing properly, dribbling with your head up and kicking the shit out of the kids you don't like while you have a chance at lunch in the name of sport. You know, all the basics.

Surely you know a thing or two about simulation? being Italian

Nice, I'm doing a similar thing.

I think you hit the mail on the head on how football is grabbing the imagination of the young ones. Through playing their FIFA games on the screen they also seem to grasp an abundance of information on football like player and team name, rules, tactic etc. Knowledge and information is a powerful tool.

Add to that the regular visits of high profile players. Suddenly Europe doesnt seem that far away. 

That's lesson 2. You have to be able to stud someone in the back of the knee and scrape their achilles before you master the art of pretending the same has happened to you...

They already do that.

Is that Sampdoria's owner in that pic? I think it is.

In Yoorup it's a reewwwl not catching a ball koltcha

It looks like you pay more attention to BF than I do!

Well, when you got a $2.5 billion TV deal, and player salaries will only come to about half that - what else you gonna do with the rest of the money?  may as well splash the cash

Their hands are too greasy, see?

Yoorupean Carp has a lowah quality protein than a rewl Ozzie fish

I have to agree here. The school my kids go to, everyday I go to pick them up all I ever see is kids with footballs. They had book week few weeks ago and the amount of kids in football kits amazed me. For a supposed AFL state/region aswell. They know footballs coming and its scaring them shitless!

- Spend 250 million on two teams that can't even draw more fans than a lil ol sokkah club?

- Maybe give it to the 60% of clubs that are losing money?

- Use it to pay lawyers and compo payouts for drug trials

- Use it for development of ludicrous expansion concepts

- Use it to pay women in Western Sydney to play

- Start a women's league


With all the panicking and fiddling with the game at the moment, you get the impression the AFL needed to sign a 4 billion dollar deal. 

Do they have any left over for afl x?

Brainstorm ways to make the exact same thing worse and 10 times more expensive next season.

i.e. the Goal Review. Fair dinkum. Back in the day you had one dodge call from a goal umpire per season. Now they have cameras in goal posts, microphones, an a guy sitting in an office watching footage, stopping the game and referring each call to him "because he's there, moight azwell use him." And now instead of trusting the goal umpire's opinion we now have a minute of replays, sound, scrutiny of every single decision - which proves that the goal umpire is dumber than we ever would have thought........... and proves why we need the system (lol). The end result? The AFL gets to massage the scores.

I can't believe I liked that game when I grew up

It genuinely was a better game back then though. It doesn't know what it wants to be anymore.

I''m in southern Queensland at the moment and all I can say is it is astonishing how football is dominating the playground everywhere I go.  I was visiting a school the other day and it was both delightful and amazing to see hundreds (no I'm not exaggerating) of kids mucking about with round balls during break.  The amount of girls playing in large mixed groups was probably the most uplifting sight I have seen in years.

The other amazing thing was the quality of the flicks, moves and dribbles the kids were turning on.  There were boys there around 12 years old that would have run circles around the semi-pro half backs of 20 years ago.  It was just bloody amazing.  Better value for your money than most outings.  I would though caution, perhaps, against standing outside schools watching the kids for an hour or so each day etc..  Might upset some mums.

I can't let it go without telling of one thing I saw.  A lad received a high ball and cushioned it with his head putting it about a metre in front of him.  He skipped forward and volleyed it just above the kid in front and ran round cheekily taking it again on the volley. He put it about a metre in front of himself as he ran forward and put it into the net with a Rabona just for style points.  You'd pay to see that shit on a full field.

So the question is - how do we get these kids to, if they play at club level, to stay in the system and become professional footballers or become paying customers of the A-League?

Yours is not an uncommon story. 

Many have abandoned the game, and that number is growing (traidtionalist have also had enough). I used to play too, but since they've fiddled with the game and reletlessly acted like bullies, topped off with some of the most reprehensible characters in world sport playing and administering the game (which is an achievment with NRL just a border away) would never watch an AFL game. 

I also know of many 50/50 afl/football fans that have turned brutally against it because of their continual attacking of football.

File me under that one. 

I also am a 50/50 fan who has just turned away completely from the AFL. I'm a 15 year member with the Cats and I've been to two home games this season out of seven - just do not enjoy it anymore.

Total home and away attendances have plummetted from 6.35 million in 2015 to 6.31 million in 2016.

There you go. Proof that your beloved sport has plateaued.

Not to mention that they've been widely criticised for inflating figures this year. 

Anyway, the AFL are sweating bullets about kids. They know they're losing them fast. 

The flipside however, is the strong certainty that all this will result in will merely be the next generation of Eurosnobs thumbing their noses at our domestic scene... 

In short the FFA must absolutely play up the connect between football in Australia to overseas - you cannot afford to give the impression they are even remotely-unrelated.

Count me in the same category.

I grew up in Blacktown playing and supporting Rugby League with the old man then when I was early teens moved to Tassie. To fit in an make friends down here I quickly picked an AFL team(Sydney) and started to learn the game and lingo. Actually played it and enjoyed for a few years in my late teens/early twenties. AFL is very much on the nose for me now. It has become so unantural even in just the few years I followed it. It basically wants to be every sport its not these days and will clutch at straws to find a relation.

For all its hate(fear) of soccer, its just a VERY bastardised version of it, in terms of styles of play and the way they move the ball around.

Ive always had a minor interest in soccer but It was actually the Wanderers and their supporters that caught and grew my attention to it. My Grandparents are european  and I remember my uncles and pop dreaming of soccer in Australia being as big as it was in Europe and it seemed there wish came true with the Wanderers. As my interest in the Wanderers grew I started to notice and appreciate the game so much more.

My opinion is Football in Australia is about the blow up. Kids now have an interest at the basic level, whether its playing on a weekend/at school or even supporting an overseas team. But as time goes on they'll want more, they'll want real life and thats when they will look locally to the A-League.

A-League needs to get itself on a mainstream channel and start promoting the hell out of itself. Expand, Expand, Expand whether that be through the NPLs or a team for the regions(Tas/Canberra/Geelong) but the more teams playing at or near the top level the closer kids will be to a team to support.

Yep me also. 

Fuck your dog. Its what you do best.