So Australia is out of the World Cup. Again.
We didn’t make it beyond the Group Stage, by forgetting the premise of the game – get the ball into the net – especially against that football superpower Peru.
Right now, the clipboard-wielding boffins at Football Federation Australia are locked in crisis-think tank-workshop-post mortems, ruminating where our campaign went wrong,
and hopefully looking down the back of the lounge for a striker.
As Australia embarks on the sandblasted “Road To Qatar”, I have the solution, and it has nothing to do with kicking said ball. It’s acting.
Stay with me. Some of the performances we have seen in the World Cup have been brilliant. Brazilian superstar Neymar took a pathetic award-winning dive and the piss, falling to the pitch mortally wounded, like he’d just had a Brazilian.
See, this is where Australia falls down. Or not. We need to get onboard this diving caper. It’s essential.
Forget combing the world (Europe) for our next unpronounceable coach to not take us past the Group Stage in 2022, we need actors in charge. Bloody good actors. Luckily, Australia has produced some of the finest in the world.
I call for Cate Blanchett to be annointed as Socceroos coach.
This is inspired. Imagine what the Academy Award / Golden Globe / BAFTA / etc, etc-winner could do to make Australia competitive on soccer’s greatest stage. The subtle nuances of mock-agony… the unworldly talent of clutching your face, screaming like you have just been shot, when you only received a mere fairytap on your knee. Penalty. Thanks Cate.
There’s been talk of not enough “mongrel” in the Australian team… hire Alf Stewart from Home and Away as Assistant Coach. He’d flamin’ sort ’em out, quick smart. Geoffrey Rush could chime in with brilliant character acting expertise, very handy when convincing the ref you have been critically injured by a non-existent elbow. Penalty.
Don’t you see? We would beat those dive-and-piss-taking-thespians from Europe and South America at their own game.
This is the future of Australian soccer. Let’s create our own Theatre of Dreams.
“Hello, Cate…”
©Steve Williams 2018