Immediate negatives that come to mind

1   bandwagon fans jump off immediately
2   naysayers can reiterate how weak we are in the world scheme of things
3   could the world cup bid be given to such a weak nation
4   media reporting levels diminish significantly
5   little kids are put off by such a thrashing

I cannot think of any positive outcomes apart from sympathy for our performance from the rest of the world

no

+1

Positives..?

A sense of reality being popped back into a few over optimistic supporters.

No.

Still 2 more matches to play. Unlikely we'll progress, but not impossible.

I am worried about some sort of media backlash... not in the next 2 weeks while we're still playing over the next couple months when the media could turn against football

football is already going backwards... this morning's result and the results to come are just going to accelerate the pending disaster

THe sky is falling the sky is falling.

A bit of window dressing aside it's been going backwards for 20 years.

Well, just listening to the AFL coverage in Melbourne, and the FIRST thing they talked about was getting up early to watch the socceroos! A big loss won`t push them out of the media, I think it just gives us perspective about how hard international football is. Plus, surely no one really thought we would do well against the Germans. What doesn`t kill us...

No.

Because….

1. 30k people travelled across continents to support the Socceroos in South Africa. I would be hugely surprised if any of them come back not wanting to go to Brazil 2014.

2. Despite its 4:30am EST kickoff, Im certain television ratings would have been through the roof.

3. Despite the freezing conditions, Im guessing over 30k people packed darling harbour and forced police to close it off 2 hours before kickoff. Across every city and town in Australia people were glued to Televisions to support the team.

We lost a World Cup game against a world powerhouse. Okay, we did last World Cup as well…twice. Don’t play it more than what it is. It was a game and a loss. The loss was expected. We hoped to guts out a result against a far superior opposition. To suggest anything more than that is a way over the top reactions.

Get some sleep, cool heads will prevail in coming days and next weekend lets get behind them again.

The bandwagon supporters are never really a positive anyway, other than pumping a little money into it at WC time. I doubt they're turning up to any A-League matches or talking about Football with friends and helping its popularity anyway.

no

we needed this result for perspective

the australian public will realise how hard it is to do well at a world cup, something we have taken for granted

definitely not. We lost to GERMANY. Serbia (and Mont) got smashed 6-0 last world cup and they're doing fine (sort of). Every country gets dominated once in a while, I remember Germany losing 3-1 to South Korea, people accept stuff like this happens.

i am interested to see the tv ratings when they come out for the game.

These are the extreme lows and highs of football. It's open kimono in a World Cup - nowhere to hide. 6 billion people watching. Can't wait for Ghana!

Agree, and who would have thought Austaralians outnumbering Germans at a World Cup match?

This could be the result that defines us a as a footballing nation. England smashed by the Hungarians, wake up call, Brazil at every World Cup between 74 and 90, lovely to watch but realised they had to change to succeed again, the Dutch in 74, oops they havent learned have they! But these are just a small sample of taking a loss or failure and turning it into a positive.

Might take some time but we will bounce back.

Hope not

if we beat Ghana, then this game will be forgotten pretty quickly by most of the mainstream public.

although it was an embarrassing performance, i think people are over-reacting a bit with the consequences of this defeat. My only concerns are the morale of the team after the game and obviously the absence of Cahill.

Yep, but there are some negatives. A win gathers support and new fans. Crushing defeats don't usually win over considering hearts.

when we beat ghana - we ca have a thread "how beating ghana has put australia forward 4 years" :P

Making the world cup I think is sufficient enough to keep the game alive and kicking, it would have got the bandwagoners on board and some will have stayed. Those who love the game will get harden up after such a humiliating defeat, were australians, not whingers :P

We love winners but if we can at least re-group against ghana and serbia then the fighting spirit we saw in 2006 will be enough to warrant a pass mark in 2010 even if we don't make it pass the group stages.

Also as long as germany fail to win the finals, that will make me happy too ;)

I'm not worried about the media. Commercial free to air television has heavily invested in NRL and AFL and is therefore already anti-football. SBS and Fox will still be pro-football. I don't see the status quo changing at all.

I actually think this will be a positive in the long term because it wll be a catalyst for change. We can now cut away the stars of 2006 who are no longer performing and cultivate a new crop of hero's for kids to look up to. Youngsters of 14-19 don't aspire to be 34 year old has beens. They compare themselves to Oar, Lowry, Vidocic and Williams. There is now no excuse not to select an Asian cup squad that is based on a core of emerging talent rather than them being simply viewed as fringe / surplus players.

MY GOD, Sanity prevails! Can't believe some of the reactions I have been reading this morning on the forum.

Well here is a positive

The euphoria and the confidence we will regain if we beat Ghana in the next game

On the other hand another loss to them well hummm :shock:

But, if we don't make the next round, will this affect the forthcoming TV rights?