Roar Final

 The Roar final the other night was great. The game might not have been to the higest quality (it especailly wasn't the Roar's best game this season) but it was still a good game to witness. Also the amount of people that turned up to see a soccer game in Australia is awesome to see. There were something like 50 334, if I rememeber correctly. I bet that there wouldn't even have been half that a few years ago. But why are there only this many people at the final? Don't people know that the more support the teams get, essentially meaning the more people that turn up to their games, the better the entire competition will get? I know many people say that the A-League is absolute rubbish and there is no point in watching it or going to their games but I believe there is. The only way that it will get better is through funding and as the government will not help much with that, then it is up to fans and attendance. Once their is enough attendance and support then maybe the government will put more money into the sport (which would be really nice cause then they might be able to get a proper women's league going). We have no Premier League here so how are we going to get to see live games? Soccer is the best sport so we have to support it in our own country. 

I do have a few bones to pick though. Firstly, most of our players are imported. Don't get me wrong, its awesome, it helps with different playing techniques and experiences but I thought this was supposed to be an Australian competition. Instead of beefing up the teams with players fresh off the plane, focus on developing players in your own country, its cheaper and  it leads to better skills and knowledge of the game. Secondly,we have no songs. That is one of the best parts of going to games overseas, all the teams have songs that are iconic to that team. They are distinguishable and all the fans know them. We lack that. Our songs are unoriginal and not everyone knows them. Also we don't have an iconic song that is just for Brisbane Roar. There is one thing where the crowd spells out Brisbane but it is far too slow to the point where I didn't realise what they were spelling. There is just a serious lack in the song department. 

The other things I have to pick are for the entire soccer world and not specific to Australia or the Roar, the diving. I mean seriously, this is ridiculous. Diving at every tackle and lying there clutching your leg only to get up and continue playing has given soccer players and the game a reputation of being weak. This is not a weak sport so stop taking the dive people and just play the game. Berisha took a dive in the injury time and it resulted in a penalty which gave us the win. It was pretty controversial especially when the big screens in the stadium kept replaying all the camera angles of the tackle. You could clearly see that Berisha didn't get touched by the Perth defender when he goes crashing to the ground. I bet the Perth fans were/are not happy about that.

But then there are also the situations were the player goes down and stays down and causes the game to be stopped when they could clearly keep playing without all the fuss. For example Shane Smeltz went down and had a blood nose. They didn't continue the game for like 5 minutes. I know you can add this to injury time and it doesn't really matter, but its your nose, not your legs. Like my friend said at the time "I hurt my nose, I can't use my legs." Its ridiculous. Man up. (it may have been more serious than just a sore nose but really, either get off the field or keep playing.)

Then not only that but the Australian Football Federation handed the Joe Marston Medal for the A-League grand final's best player to Thomas Broitch from Roar when it was supposed to go to Perth Glory captain Jacob Burns. Oh that is embarrassing. Well I bet that made Perth fans even more upset.

Oh and the man sitting behind me. Wow did you not shut up the entire game. I was surprised that you didn't lose your voice. The amount of swear words that were coming out of your mouth was ridiculous and also repetitive. I felt like you needed a thesaurus so that you could have more variety. Also your comments were a little, how should I term this... ludicrous! "To win, you have to get the ball!" Oh really? You need the ball to win? The game makes so much more sense now, I am glad that you told (yelled really loudly into my ear from behind) me.

In the end its all part of the game. These things are annoying but its still a beautiful game. I know we have technology now where we could indeed have video referees and check the replays multiple times before a decision is made like they now do in rubgy and tennis but I think that would ruin it. Its so traditional in this way and if there weren't all the controversies, like the ending of this game (or even Maradona's Hand of God goal in the World Cup) then it wouldn't be half as exciting.