World Cup soccer fans abandon reality for fantasy, says Neil Mitchell THIS happens every four years as the World Cup force-feeds the round ball on to the sports pages, but once again the soccer nuts of Australia have abandoned our reality for their fantasy.
Now they really are kidding themselves because they claim the AFL is beaten and soccer is about to become the national obsession.
It's nonsense, but relax.
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This temporary fascination will soon end and soccer in Australia will resume its appropriate place alongside such riveting and massively popular spectator sports as lacrosse and croquet.
What these people don't understand is that the World Cup is not their showpiece, blazing a path for the game in this country.
It is instead solid proof of why soccer will not thrive here and confirmation it is culturally unacceptable to Australians.
This is nothing to do with the struggles of the Socceroos in South Africa. Australians will always cheer a national team even when it is playing midnight tiddlywinks.
This is all about the Australian character and culture as it exposes itself through sport.
The World Cup is evidence that soccer cares little for the values that underpin that culture and shows why it will never become the dominant ball game in this country.
Here's the proof, again highlighted at this tournament:
Diving. That awful habit many soccer players have of falling down as though shot when an opponent brushes past. As Jason Akermanis wrote in this newspaper yesterday, it's a blight on the code.
It's embarrassing, frustrating, and humiliating. It leads to horrible mistakes that can cost a game when a player is sent off. It's bad pantomime. It's cheating. It is unfair and un-Australian.
Imagine if Steven Baker had been a soccer player. After he copped that whack under the eye he wouldn't have been back on in five minutes, he would have been in intensive care for a week.
That naughty Robert Dipierdomenico played a large slice of a grand final with a punctured lung. A highly-priced striker with a punctured lung would need a year off and a new blonde.
Team loyalty. In soccer, it doesn't exist. Admittedly the Socceroos are less to blame here, but watch most elite goalies when the opposition scores.
They wave their arms, point fingers and snarl, blaming everybody down to the water boy rather than admit that perhaps they fumbled, stumbled, or just didn't see the ball coming.
Then watch an AFL or ARL player who commits a howler or a cricketer who drops a sitter. His teammates run in at once to reassure and encourage their mate, even if they think he's got the skills of a grade 6 nerd.
Bagging your mates is, and always has been, un-Australian.
Bad referees and whingers. Now it is true, we all like to blame the umpire, but only in soccer can there be such good reason. When Harry Kewell closed his eyes and failed to escape the ball he was accused of cheating. It was as silly as the ref who failed to notice the ball was in the back of the net.
In Australian sport we have heard of this marvellous invention called the video camera and found it can be quite handy when trying to avoid errors. We have referees and umpires who can run faster than Matt Preston and have better vision than a myopic mouse.
There's also a tradition in this country called sportsmanship. True, St Kilda Football Club doesn't entirely understand the concept but generally when beaten we pay tribute to the victor, even when we think he cheated and tricked his way to the top.
THE standard of the game. There are two types of soccer match worth watching. One is the best standard possible and a game with real meaning, like a World Cup final or an FA Cup. The second is when your kids are playing. Neither involves the A League.
To go from watching a top class soccer game to the A League is to move from Shane Warne at his peak to a 130kg trundler trying to tweak it on matting at the local park.
That's a problem because when good sport does manage to emerge at the World Cup is looks nothing like what happens each week in Australia.
Yet, Rod Allen, from the stupidly named FFA offered this when overcome by World Cup optimism, predicting the AFL had peaked:
"It's only a matter of time before it (soccer) dominates in Victoria."
Fortunately the Australian Sports Commission doesn't agree, with a survey this week showing more Victorians play netball than soccer. Basketball was top, with 230,000 registered players; Australian Rules had 220,000 and soccer 128,000.
Still, those taxpayers who provide very little to AFL support the game with $45 million to spend on pearls, junkets and slings to strange blokes who reckon they can bring the World Cup here in 2022.
Underlying all this is some fundamental trickery, in the style of the great Collingwood myth.
Collingwood supporters claim they have the most successful club in history, but have won only one premiership in 51 years. This year, they say, is the year.
Soccer supporters say they have the world game, but it struggles in Australia. This time, they say, we will surge.
Sadly, the Pies have more chance of success.
nmitchell@3aw.com.au Neil Mitchell broadcasts from 8.30am on weekdays on 3AW