the happiness of the danes

Or was it the Norwegians?  One or the other.

Anyways, some researcher made a “happiness” league table of countries, and the Danes came out on top.  It seemed that the reason was the Dane`s thoroughly glum outlook on life.  If you expect bad things to happen then you won`t spend much time stressing or feeling bad when they do.  A gross oversimplification, but close enough I figure.

I feel a lot of glumness on the interwebs re Aussie soccer atm.  The crowds are down.  The socceroos are dour.  Your team (perhaps) sucks.  The general quality of the A-league sucks (depending on your opinion).

The glumness can be beaten in several ways.  One way, the least likely way, is for the environment to change – crowds go up, the socceroos go roy-of-the-rovers-ish, your team goes r-o-t-r-ish, or A-league games start looking like my games of Pro Evo Soccer Wii. This is the LEAST likely thing to happen.

Choice 2 – find another hobby or team.  Mr Hamish pointed out that Brisbane fans have the chance to support a very talented, successful, not-dysfunctional womens team at a good stadium at a good price.

Choice 3 – Re-adjust your expectations.  One theory is that sadness is caused by a gap between reality and what you expected to happen. The Danes don`t have to do this, they were expecting a flying a dinosaur to shit on their heads this morning.  Or something else like that to happen.  Your team sucks.  Is your glumness caused by their suckiness, or by your earlier expectation/hope that they would “ROCK!!!”?  I argue that it tis the expectations that cause the glumness.  Adjust them and that smile will come back.

Choice 4 – Madly find silver linings.  Woohoo!  A-league crowds are down!  Now the plastic new “franchises” have to give up some of their smugness and really work at relationship building with fans / communities (not looking at you CCM, you sound rather nice).

I am doing a bit of choice 4, but I am mainly into choice 3 atm.  So, lets have a cup of tea and enjoy some footy, shall we?

PS.  Just watched the highlights of Welly vs GCU.  How many times do you hear the phrase “they could have had 6 goals before the break”?  Faint praise as it highlights the dominant teams lack of putting-the-ball-in-the-net-ness.  Bravo Welly for turning dominance into goals.  Will they tonk another team this year?  I have a feeling it is quite possible.

why can`t he always write like this?

sometimes fozzie seems like a rational, normal person -

http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/football/a-league/crowds-will-grow-from-grass-roots/2009/10/24/1256147922636.html

 

Fox could just maybe take their sports betting plugs and shove it up their proverbials.

Did I ever mention that I was naive?  Cynical bastards.

if you have ever used the word “cynical” when talking about football …

Then you are probably a bit naive, aren`t you?

the joy of 6

I rather enjoyed this collection of team goals

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/jul/17/joy-of-six-great-team-goals

I like the Southhampton goal best.

4 – 2 – 3 – 1 bad, 4 – 4 – 2 good?

Well, no.   I read a Mike Cockerill piece over at SMH this morning that gave the impression that 4231 is defensive and 442 is offensive.  Silly me for reading Mike Cockerill?  Well, yeah.  But I hadn`t had my coffee yet, so the brain wasn`t fully switched on …

Holland uses a very attacking 4231.  Japan uses the same formation and never looks overly cautious.   The 2006 WC winners Italy used a solitary striker; whilst not a magical side, they weren`t the most defensive side there.

So the formation isn`t Australia`s problem.  What is the problem, IMHO, is the personnel being used and what they are doing on the park.  For example, 2 defensive midfielders who stay in front of the central defenders for the whole match is defensive.  If one of them got forward sometimes, suddenly it is an attacking formation.

Reading Mike Cockerill reminded me of how much I enjoy reading Jonathon Wilson`s writing over at the Guardian.  If you like reading about how football teams work, and why, then you should check his stuff.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jonathanwilson

Crowd numbers matter …

because …

I think that underneath the discussions about A-league crowds are a set of deeper, unstated beliefs that are not being aired.

The main unstated belief is that the A-league will become one of Australia`s mainstream spectator professional leagues, with similar support as the NRL and the AFL.  The flipside to this belief is that not becoming as big a professional league as the NRL or the AFL would be a bad thing.  A disaster.

I don`t think that not becoming as big as those other spectator leagues would be a disaster.

The continued growth of the A-league is not pre-ordained.　　Things may stay pretty much as is – a couple of teams with nice plus 15,000, while the rest of the league flirts with 8,000 to 10,000 crowds.  As long as the teams are well run and stable.

Now that the national setup is all Dutch, it is instructive to think about the Dutch league.  Their best players don`t play at home.  The Eredivisie is in the 2nd tier of Euro leagues.

So perhaps our professional league has a more humble future in store.  Our best will continue going to Europe when they are young.  Less talented pros will get a chance to make a living in the Euro 2nd and Asia.  The A-league will be like the Brazillian or Portuguese leagues – small crowds – young players, old players and those who never quite had it.  Perhaps. Its not that bad, is it?

different forms of cheating are acceptable in different cultures; we are conditioned to think that “our” players do not take part in the cheating we abhor

Idea 1

They dive.

We are thugs.

Both are forms of cheating.

We are blind to our own preferred form of cheating.  When “we” play a game against “them”, usually we will complain about their diving.  We will also ignore any of our kicking “them”, hectoring the referee or other forms of cheating that are acceptable in our culture.  They will complain about our thuggishness and ignore their team`s diving.  I just spent 10 hours riding / trying to sleep on the overnight bus from Tokyo to Osaka – I am incapable of thinking of examples.  Hey internet, go find some examples for me.

Idea 2

We get so used to saying “they dive, but we don`t”  that we start to believe that “our” players are incapable of diving, and you can`t see it when they do.  The English are so used to thinking like this that they are incapable of realising that Rooney and Gerrard have used diving to help their teams.  Are their Aussies that dive?  Cool, I made an example.

must … not … read … anything by craig foster … ever again!

AAARGH!  resisting … urge … to post a rant …

Ah, that`s better, had a cup of tea and a lie down. And a listen to Radiohead`s “Just”.

when did i turn neutral?

I`ve been avoiding this one, but I gotta get this off my chest.  I turned neutral.

At the start of the a-league, I was living in Brisbane.  I come from North Queensland.  It was all so simple.  Support Brisbane.

But the last couple of Brisbane games I watched, I gotta say I was quite pleased when the other side won.  And I was hoping Sydney would get the win too.

I believe that “club” fans are important and do so much to make football what it is.  I was quite disdainful of neutrals – probably still am.  It is unfortunate that I have become one.  What happened?  Oops, this is the internet, isn`t it?

WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?!?  AAARGH!!!  I forgot that every statement has to scream off the page.  Anyways …

- I have been out of Oz for 2 and a bit years, and I really don`t know where I will move to when I return,

- Danny Tiatto,

- The inclusion of more Queensland teams, and

- The emphasis (especially in the front third) on foreign journeymen.

I saw some very telling blogging on 442 by the lady who supports CCM about how fans should be there through thick and thin … but what can you say, when the love is gone, there is no use going through the motions pretending it is still there.

It kind of shocked me when I realised that I was cheering for the Glory when they lowered Brisbane`s colours recently.  When I tried to put into words why, the best that I could come up with was that “I want the spine of the team to be Aussie”.   I probably can`t say it was just that, but I have to admit to myself that I have been cheering for the other team recently.