Football 2023: Australian teams get more chances on world stage but A-League must be fixed

Messi becomes king, Ronaldo goes job-hunting, and sadly Pele passes away.

And that was just December.

The year 2022 has been, again, quite a 12 months in football, both globally and here in Australia.

Australia’s global appeal

The world and home stages were happily intertwined in the most unexpected manner by the Socceroos, led by Graham Arnold, who started 2022 coaching the team in hotel isolation and ended the year with the freedom afforded by the country’s undying love.

What a wild ride. He was nearly sacked in March. He introduced the planet to the grey wiggle in June, and then his greatest act, getting a bunch of ambitious young men collected from off-Broadway clubs to the knockout stages of the World Cup.

Arnold now has as much power, and love, as he ever will in Australian football. He wants to stay, apparently. Football Australia are keen to chat once he’s finished his holiday in England. There is plenty to oversee, not least preparations for the Asian Cup (January, 2024).

The 2026 World Cup will come around soon enough, and Arnold’s Tokyo Olyroos experiment has firmly reset the template; focus on the national youth teams performing on the world stage. Next year is huge in that regard, with qualification for the under 17s and under 20s World Cups and building to Paris 2024 for the under 23s. Wonder where Cristian Volpato, the Roma wunderkind courted by Italy but cheering the Socceroos on from a Sydney fan park fits in?

Tom Rogic, too, watched the World Cup from afar, but is now back playing regularly - and well - for West Brom in England. Volpato or Rogic. Who plays for the Socceroos next?

Socceroos captain Maty Ryan wants a move from FC Copenhagen, his relationship with fellow keeper Kamil Grabara is in ruins after the latter’s grubby tweet following Ryan’s mistake against Argentina. Harry Souttar has a ‘choose your own adventure’ moment looming, with Premier League clubs in the market in January. Keanu Baccus could move to England’s Championships, or higher, from St Mirren in Scotland.

Matildas feel the heat

The Matildas end 2022 feeling positive about what lies in wait - a World Cup on home soil in July and August. Hope returned after late-year wins over Denmark and Sweden, the latter as good as the Matildas have played in three years.

January’s Asian Cup failure, plus an understrength side getting smashed by Spain are mere memories. Tony Gustavsson’s job was looking shaky at one point, but the FA backed him.

More is needed as July draws closer. European champions England, plus Spain, Germany, Netherlands and France are serious contenders alongside USA and Canada.

Everything has to go right for the Matildas to contend. Sam Kerr is still scoring at nearly a goal per game for Chelsea. Rated third-best in the world by FIFA, she is indispensable for club and country. Kerr is surrounded by players at or nearing their career peak, so the time is now.

Fixing the A-League’s wounds

While respect on a global stage is trending north for Australian football, the domestic game’s window of opportunity ends with tarps over seats, the biggest club in the A-League, Melbourne Victory, awaiting punishment and rampant discontent between fans and administrators.

The game has been here before, over and over. On and on.

The latest wound, like many before, feels self-inflicted, with days separating the masses in town squares watching the World Cup and architects of anarchy storming a pitch.

Time and resources, better served propelling the competition forward, will be diverted to fixing relationships with fans and broadcasters.

A-Leagues executives and key figures on the APL board remain vehemently behind the decision to sell the grand final. Money is in short supply. NSW government millions help the bottom line, but the top line discussion is about how to repair image and perception.

It’s a deeper shame due to what is actually happening on the pitch. Eight players in the Socceroos’ World Cup squad tells of an above-average standard. Every Matilda in the World Cup squad will have come through, or from, the A-League Women’s, with the searing pace of Sydney’s Courtnee Vine a weapon the Matildas use best with the world watching.

Young players continue to progress, using the A-Leagues as a perfect springboard to Europe, with 18-year-old Socceroo Garang Kuol about to be the latest to leave and try his luck. Marco Tilio and Jordan Bos (Melbourne City), Joe Gauci (Adelaide) and Calem Nieuwenhof (Western Sydney) are but a few of those on the radar of clubs abroad.

A men’s national second division, talked about since the stone ages, will allegedly start in 2023, creating more opportunities for players to get the minutes they need to realise potential.

Managers on the up

At management level, a handful of Australians continue to prove themselves in football-mad lands.

In 2022, Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic have won 33 of 37 Scottish League games, and lost just one. Postecoglou has gone beyond just respect, building an aura in the harshest of environments in quick time. What remains is progress in the Champions League out of the group stage. This season shortcomings were exposed against the very best.

Unless a tempting offer floats in from south of the Scottish border, or from the continent, Champions League progress with Celtic would be another huge achievement.

Kevin Muscat, too, has opened up opportunities with success, replicating his former mentor’s achievement in Japan, guiding Yokohama F Marinos to the J.League title.

Patrick Kisnorbo has just left the comfort of Melbourne City for a bigger test with Troyes in France, Alen Stajcic miraculously qualified the Philippines women for a World Cup and Joe Montemurro won more trophies in the women’s game, taking Juventus to the Italian title. There are others dotted across the globe as managers, assistants, or at youth level.

It won’t happen in 2023, but perhaps by 2030, the aim for Australian management stocks should be to have a shortlist of 10 for both national team jobs at any given time.

Big money, big buys

As more Australians threaten to break into the big-time overseas, the business of top-level football continues to inflate.

Real Madrid won their 14th Champions League. AC Milan returned to glory in a tight race in Italy. Bayern Munich won a 10th successive Bundesliga and Paris Saint Germain an eighth Ligue 1 title in the last decade.

Pep Guardiola won his fourth Premier League title as Manchester City held off Liverpool. Big clubs, with big budgets, dominating.

The calendar in England turns with Manchester City seriously challenged by Arsenal, led by Guardiola acolyte Mikel Arteta, and Newcastle, forged by Saudi finances but improved drastically by Eddie Howe, who turned down a chance to manage Celtic, opening the door for Postecoglou to walk in. It’s worked out for both.

While the inevitable and the exciting plays out, the spectre of a European Super League won’t go away. It was rebelled against by fans, but Spain’s two giants, Real Madrid and Barcelona hold hope. It is their only hope to keep pace financially with the Premier League cubs, who one by one are being picked off by the mega-wealthy.

Liverpool and Manchester United are for sale. A mere billion in the bank is not enough.

The special moments

Qatar’s staging of the World Cup is seen as a triumph inside FIFA. Its president Gianni Infantino felt Arab, disabled, gay, like a migrant worker before the tournament. He was smiling after it.

The football was terrific, though if oxygen wasn’t a problem, the World Cup could be held on the moon and stay a must-watch.

Whether it be here in Australia to the A-Leagues grand final decision, or FIFA implementing Club World Cups, or the European superpowers agitating for a bigger slice of an already mammoth pie, the money-driven urgings of those charged with running the sport will guide the game.

Fortunately, there will forever be special moments.

Whether it’s watching a loved one scored a goal on a cold Saturday morning, or watching Mat Leckie surge past stricken Danes, or a veteran Lionel Messi careening down the sideline like he was on a dirt pitch in Rosario, the ball and the world at his feet, football will always find a way to navigate the noise that blares around it.

Sam Kerr, flipping away in glory in a World Cup final in Sydney could be that moment in 2023. Here’s hoping.