'We Are Football''. Brilliant. A statement of fact, and a statement of intent. The new A-League season will be launched today with a new slogan, some would say six years too late. No matter. It's time for the league, and the game, to start believing in itself or it will never get out of the ghetto. The failed World Cup bid proved that beyond doubt.
Football has played the victim for generations. It's played the nice guy, too. You don't win a battle, let alone a war, by being either.
Football has made many strides since evolution became a revolution under Frank Lowy eight years ago. But even when times were good - and they were very good around the 2006 World Cup - the game still couldn't overcome it's greatest weakness: anxiety. So as things got tougher, it didn't take long for the lack of self-belief to manifest. Such is the psychology of the game. Football embraces failure too readily. When things are going well, everybody's nervous. When things fall apart, everybody's comfortable. ''It's meant to be like this.'' No it isn't. And it's time to stop.
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The failed World Cup bid brought the stark reality to the surface. This is war. Rival codes, especially the AFL, feel enormously threatened when football looks like turning potential into reality. So they use every trick in the book to weaken their adversary.
At every turn the World Cup bid was undermined, unashamedly so, by Andrew Demetriou. At every level, football's response was pathetic. Lowy, for one of the few times in his life, let the game down. The less said about the strategy of Football Federation Australia management the better. Missing out on the World Cup didn't hurt so much because it was undone by FIFA politics. Losing on the world stage is one thing. Losing on the domestic stage is quite another. Especially when the chance to leave a legacy was surrendered without a fight.
We Are Football is about changing that. At least that's the theory. The practice is the hard part. It's empty rhetoric unless Lowy and his board, and Ben Buckley and his management, actually do something about it.
The first part of the fight is to win over the football community. It's not about getting the theatregoers to come to the football. It's about getting the football community to support it's own game. This morning, at the SFS, the season will be launched by junior players, former Socceroos, referees, club officials, coaches and anyone else who feels they belong. It's the right move at the right time. To start a battle, you need an army at your back.
The second part of the fight is to win the battle. That's the battle against the AFL and the NRL. It's tough, it's ugly, it's relentless. Football in Australia is over 120 years old, yet it continues to settle for second-best. That's why the failed World Cup bid was so demoralising. This A-League season is about turning that losing mentality around.
