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Your emergency World Cup bluffer’s guide · The Front

0:05
Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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Speaker 1: It's Thursday, July to twenty twenty six. Investor property loan
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0:42
Speaker 1: live right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
0:48
Speaker 1: For the dilettantes and the distracted, it's time to start
0:51
Speaker 1: paying attention. Australias into the round of sixteen in the
0:55
Speaker 1: FIFA World Cup with a must win match.
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Speaker 2: Against Egypt early on Saturday.
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Speaker 1: Today are football expert Josh Whittington is here with a
1:03
Speaker 1: bluffer's guide. He'll break down the unexpected delights of this
1:07
Speaker 1: World Cup, how the global superstars stack up, and whether
1:11
Speaker 1: soccer is ready to truly take on league and Aussie
1:14
Speaker 1: rules For Australian's hearts.
1:16
Speaker 2: Josh is here in just a moment.
1:30
Speaker 1: Boys passing annotation, Hi.
1:35
Speaker 3: Says the goal for the whole lots of finish there
1:41
Speaker 3: it is another high point. If the soccer is World Cup.
1:44
Speaker 1: Journy, Well, for those of us who haven't been paying
1:51
Speaker 1: attention to the fee for World Cup until right now,
1:53
Speaker 1: it's business time. Suddenly we have to lock on the
1:56
Speaker 1: soccer whos are playing on the weekend and the games
1:59
Speaker 1: are getting to the business end of the tournament. I've
2:01
Speaker 1: brought in Josh Whittington, who's one of the Australians soccer experts.
2:05
Speaker 1: I think he would object to that title, just purely
2:07
Speaker 1: because I used the word soccer to tell us if
2:10
Speaker 1: we haven't been paying attention until now, what to pay
2:12
Speaker 1: attention to, if the soccer us have any chance and
2:15
Speaker 1: why this tournament has been so much more fun than
2:17
Speaker 1: anyone expected. Josh, let's start with the easy part. Do
2:21
Speaker 1: the soccer US have any chance of winning their game
2:23
Speaker 1: on early Saturday morning Australian time.
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Speaker 3: Well, firstly, thank you for having me on, because I've
2:28
Speaker 3: known you for a long time and this is the
2:29
Speaker 3: first time you've invited me on to the front, so
2:32
Speaker 3: I'm very privileged.
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Speaker 1: I think you'll find I've invited you on many times,
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Speaker 1: but you've always been mysteriously too busy.
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Speaker 3: So the Football World Cup, we should be excited because
2:42
Speaker 3: we are a definite chance of going through against Egypt.
2:45
Speaker 3: So for people that aren't necessarily aware of Egypt, they've
2:48
Speaker 3: got a couple of very well known players, one most
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Speaker 3: Sala who would be known to most football fans past
2:54
Speaker 3: the one two school legitt and a couple of other ones,
3:01
Speaker 3: one from man City called Omama Mush who's very good
3:03
Speaker 3: as well. This is my Mush and.
3:06
Speaker 2: He scampers away from Nathan and court.
3:10
Speaker 3: Oh Mama Mush. But they are very beatable and as
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Speaker 3: far as a drawer to get into the last sixteen
3:16
Speaker 3: of the World Cup, it's pretty good. So the timing
3:19
Speaker 3: of the game is not great. Four o'clock in the
3:21
Speaker 3: morning on a Saturday, so you're gonna have to get
3:23
Speaker 3: up early and put your cup of tea on, or
3:25
Speaker 3: for the younger fans you maybe leave the night club
3:28
Speaker 3: at three am and to just keep going. But yeah, no,
3:31
Speaker 3: get excited because we could win this game.
3:43
Speaker 2: The soccer RWs have had a long and sort of
3:45
Speaker 2: storied history.
3:46
Speaker 1: Australia's got their hopes up a few times about the
3:48
Speaker 1: soccer ruse and they've never quite captured. I think the
3:51
Speaker 1: national heart as well as the Matildas have.
3:55
Speaker 2: Cot be mine to take Samka, I never Tilda's why
3:59
Speaker 2: they've never mean football.
4:01
Speaker 3: No Australian team has ever reached the World Come semi final.
4:06
Speaker 1: Every single person in this country, you are part of
4:10
Speaker 1: this week?
4:12
Speaker 3: Thank you?
4:13
Speaker 1: Is this the moment where they eclipse the women and
4:15
Speaker 1: proves that they're really worth following?
4:18
Speaker 3: Oh that's a good question. You know what, before this
4:20
Speaker 3: tournament started, I would even say as a football fan,
4:22
Speaker 3: I probably knew more of the Matillas than this current team.
4:25
Speaker 3: So is that going to change? I don't think so.
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Speaker 3: I don't think they have many superstars, but they are young,
4:31
Speaker 3: so I would say this tournament's maybe a step too
4:34
Speaker 3: early for them. But for you time, this team could
4:37
Speaker 3: be really good, so let's hope they win. I don't
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Speaker 3: think this is going to have a major change on
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Speaker 3: football in Australia because really what you need for the
4:46
Speaker 3: game to grow bigger is big superstars, and I'm not
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Speaker 3: sure we have them right at the moment.
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Speaker 1: The last game that the soccer has played in the
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Speaker 1: World Cup was a nil all draw. Josh which to
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Speaker 1: a non football fan like me, sounds like a major disappointment.
5:00
Speaker 2: How did you interpret that result?
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Speaker 3: It was a terrible game. Don't let any football fan
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Speaker 3: tell you what to do, but it was terrible. I've
5:06
Speaker 3: likened it in my column to realizing you're now qualified
5:10
Speaker 3: for a bow counter screening test. That's how exciting it was.
5:14
Speaker 3: But the point being that it was a very important game.
5:17
Speaker 3: There was a lot riding on it for both teams.
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Speaker 3: Both teams were very happy for it to be a
5:21
Speaker 3: pretty dour draw so they got the point they needed. Look,
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Speaker 3: it was one of those things that just had to
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Speaker 3: be done. It was important. We did what we needed
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Speaker 3: to do and now we move on it. I wouldn't guarantee,
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Speaker 3: but I think this game against Egypt will be a
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Speaker 3: lot more exciting.
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Speaker 1: How have you found the sort of physical ordeal of
5:36
Speaker 1: following this World Cup? Your heating bill must be through
5:38
Speaker 1: the roof with all these middle of the night games
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Speaker 1: and cups of tea.
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Speaker 3: Well, exactly as someone that likes to watch every single
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Speaker 3: game in some shape or form, this expanded tournament, because
5:48
Speaker 3: this tournament is far bigger than any previous World Cup.
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Speaker 3: There's forty eight teams and there's means a lot more games,
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Speaker 3: and a lot more early mornings, and a lot more
5:56
Speaker 3: trying to work out how to work SBS is app
5:58
Speaker 3: to get mini matches and everything. To be honest as
6:01
Speaker 3: a fan, it's probably been too much. I am sort
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Speaker 3: of this struggle and we still got thirty two teams
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Speaker 3: in there, just about to give you sixteen teams. So
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Speaker 3: there's a lot more to come, that's the amazing thing.
6:10
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm sort of on the edge already.
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Speaker 1: So if Australia does triumph over Egypt on Saturday morning,
6:17
Speaker 1: what happens after that, Well.
6:18
Speaker 3: They'll go through the round sixteen and if all things
6:20
Speaker 3: go to what they should, they'll probably play Argentina, which
6:23
Speaker 3: is it goes from having a good draw to having
6:26
Speaker 3: a terrible draw.
6:27
Speaker 2: Even I know that's a daunting prospect.
6:30
Speaker 3: Yes, they're probably one of the favorites for the whole thing.
6:32
Speaker 3: Most people, if they don't know football, have heard of
6:34
Speaker 3: Leo Messi, who is having a good tournament for someone
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Speaker 3: of a ripe old age that he's at mass flying forward.
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Speaker 3: We so look, it's not what we want, or maybe
6:51
Speaker 3: it is. Maybe it's the game that we do want
6:54
Speaker 3: because it gets everyone's attention, the world will be watching.
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Speaker 3: Gives people an opportunity to overperform. I think it's been
7:00
Speaker 3: a great achievement for them to make it this far.
7:02
Speaker 3: So if they beat Egypt, that'll be well well overachieving,
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Speaker 3: so touchwood.
7:14
Speaker 1: One of the joys of this tournament from the outside
7:17
Speaker 1: has been seeing the fans enjoying themselves across the American
7:20
Speaker 1: cities where these games are being played, Norwegians rolling in
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Speaker 1: the stands, Scottish people just kind of drinking everywhere, seeing
7:36
Speaker 1: great songs.
7:36
Speaker 2: What have you enjoyed about the way people are enjoying this.
7:40
Speaker 3: There is nothing like a World Cup. I've been lucky
7:42
Speaker 3: enough to go to a few, and I can still
7:44
Speaker 3: remember inadvertently walking onto a bus and ending up on
7:48
Speaker 3: a bus with entirely packed with Swedish fans, and then
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Speaker 3: having to pretend I was singing along till all the time.
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Speaker 3: You would have.
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Speaker 2: Fitted right in, you would have merged, you would have
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Speaker 2: melded in with the well.
7:58
Speaker 3: Well, I did have a soccer whose stop on. Maybe not,
8:00
Speaker 3: but the beauty of it is there's nothing like football
8:03
Speaker 3: fans at a World Cup. It's just a party and
8:05
Speaker 3: it's everyone's happy and everyone's mixing, and although football has
8:09
Speaker 3: a reputation of violence and crowd violence, never really happens
8:13
Speaker 3: at a World Cup. There's generally a good vibe. I've
8:15
Speaker 3: been really happy to see the scenes that this World Cup.
8:19
Speaker 3: It just seems like it's a great festival football sort
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Speaker 3: of feel to it.
8:23
Speaker 1: That's a cliche, isn't it, that this is a festival
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Speaker 1: and not a competition. We hear that about everything from
8:28
Speaker 1: the athletics Carnival to the journalism awards, and in fact
8:31
Speaker 1: the opposite is true.
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Speaker 2: It's absolutely a competition.
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Speaker 1: Who would be the kind of popular favorite to win
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Speaker 1: the whole tournament and who's the kind of dark horse.
8:39
Speaker 3: Well, I'll just say, firstly, I've never won a journalism award,
8:42
Speaker 3: so I just have that on the record. But well,
8:45
Speaker 3: the popular favorite at every World Cup is Brazil. Like
8:48
Speaker 3: everyone loves Brazil. It's just easy, super start. I think
8:59
Speaker 3: they've won the most well of anyone. They've got some
9:01
Speaker 3: of the most famous players in the world, and they're
9:03
Speaker 3: fans sort of embody that sort of beautiful game. I'm
9:07
Speaker 3: partial to France because I just think they've got the
9:09
Speaker 3: best array of talent and I think they've got the
9:12
Speaker 3: best footballer in the world in Killean and Babe.
9:14
Speaker 2: Who's having an incredible tournament as well, isn't he.
9:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, and some people might argue with that, but yeah,
9:18
Speaker 3: I think France to the team that would be the
9:20
Speaker 3: favorites stop after a French store. Then you'd have Brazil
9:30
Speaker 3: probably the crowd favorites, and then people love Leo Messi
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Speaker 3: and people love Ronaldo, so you know, Portugal and Argentina
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Speaker 3: have probably got a lot of fans as well.
9:40
Speaker 1: There's been some high profile kind of knockouts, haven't there already.
9:43
Speaker 1: Germany's out of the World Cup, which was a surprise
9:46
Speaker 1: to me but maybe not to you.
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Speaker 3: I no, definitely surprise, but I'll upset the German listeners
9:51
Speaker 3: to this podcast. But I love seeing Germany go out.
9:53
Speaker 3: They've been successful for a long time. When I was
9:56
Speaker 3: going up, they never lost a penalty shootout, so I
9:58
Speaker 3: was very surprised to see them go out. But look,
10:01
Speaker 3: it's good for the game. The one good thing about
10:03
Speaker 3: this tournament is we've got a lot of good other
10:05
Speaker 3: teams that we haven't been at World Cups before, and
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Speaker 3: there's only eight countries that have won the World Cup
10:11
Speaker 3: in the history of it so to see other teams
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Speaker 3: come through and some of the big boys go out, well,
10:15
Speaker 3: I think that's good for the sport. So slightly disappointed
10:18
Speaker 3: to see the big teams go out, but Germany and
10:20
Speaker 3: Holland go on, bring it on. Yeah, I'm happy about it.
10:24
Speaker 1: Coming up what this World Cup could mean for football
10:28
Speaker 1: in Australia. Football in Australia is going through a huge
10:41
Speaker 1: period of transition. Obviously, the advent of the Matilda's into
10:44
Speaker 1: the popular imagination has inspired girls all over Australia to
10:48
Speaker 1: take up football. Last time I paid attention to the
10:51
Speaker 1: men's game in Australia, there were a lot of people
10:53
Speaker 1: letting off flares and starting fights. That seems to have
10:56
Speaker 1: changed as well. Where do you see Australian football now?
10:59
Speaker 1: And how much does it matter whether or not the
11:01
Speaker 1: soccer Who's triumph or not at this World Cup?
11:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, good question and we could probably be here all day.
11:06
Speaker 3: But the soccer is have not missed the World Cup
11:09
Speaker 3: since two thousand and six, so we are doing remarkably
11:13
Speaker 3: well to make them and it probably for someone that
11:16
Speaker 3: is into the game, you sort of get this every
11:18
Speaker 3: four years, the sort of nation wakes up to it
11:20
Speaker 3: a little bit and you see the shirts around again
11:22
Speaker 3: and people sort of start telling your names and players.
11:25
Speaker 3: But it doesn't really have a huge effect long term
11:28
Speaker 3: on the league. The A League is not in great shape,
11:31
Speaker 3: crowds are not great, its administration is not great. So look,
11:35
Speaker 3: every four years you hope that it'll have some sort
11:37
Speaker 3: of effect on the sport. I think the real impact
11:40
Speaker 3: of the sport will be the Matilda's. I think that
11:42
Speaker 3: is massive for Australian football because they are, you know,
11:45
Speaker 3: one of the most well liked sporting teams in the
11:47
Speaker 3: country and got so many more girls playing than when
11:50
Speaker 3: I grew up. So I think that will actually have
11:52
Speaker 3: a really big effect on football in Australia, probably more
11:54
Speaker 3: so than the soccer.
11:55
Speaker 1: Who's to be honest, as a participation sport too, it's
11:59
Speaker 1: got the appeal to mums and dads that rugby league
12:02
Speaker 1: and rugby union even AFL are going to start struggling
12:05
Speaker 1: more with. I think as awareness grows about the impact
12:08
Speaker 1: of head trauma, that is certainly an issue also in
12:11
Speaker 1: football in soccer, but much less so than in those
12:14
Speaker 1: heavy contact sports. Do you think the game is kind
12:18
Speaker 1: of set up in Australia to know what to do
12:21
Speaker 1: with a generation of kids who are going to grow
12:23
Speaker 1: up with soccer as the game that they are playing
12:25
Speaker 1: on the weekend.
12:27
Speaker 3: No is my short answer to that. You'll find a
12:30
Speaker 3: lot of like me. To be honest, I grew up
12:32
Speaker 3: playing football, but I still love my rugby league and
12:36
Speaker 3: my rugby Union and even my Ossie Rules. So you'll
12:39
Speaker 3: find there's a lot of Ossies that play when they're young,
12:42
Speaker 3: that participation rates are really high, but there is not
12:46
Speaker 3: a real pathway beyond that because our big sports are
12:49
Speaker 3: still dominated by the rugby and the Ossie rules codes.
12:52
Speaker 3: So you'll find a kid like Lucas Herrington, who played
12:55
Speaker 3: for Australia in the last game. He's only eighteen. He
12:59
Speaker 3: did play in the league and then got signed by
13:01
Speaker 3: a US team and he's now being courted by some
13:03
Speaker 3: European teams. So that's probably the pathway that these kids have.
13:07
Speaker 3: So we don't get the real talent in Australia playing,
13:10
Speaker 3: which has a flow on effect that maybe you don't
13:13
Speaker 3: get the crowds going to watch it because the talent's
13:15
Speaker 3: not there. They prefer to watch the European leagues or
13:18
Speaker 3: the Premier League, etc. So look, yeah, the pathways. It's
13:22
Speaker 3: a difficult one for a strange football to fix. I
13:24
Speaker 3: don't pretend to have the answer to it, to.
13:26
Speaker 1: Be honest, Well, in your other life, Josh, you are
13:29
Speaker 1: also an expert in rugby league and very annoyingly thrash
13:33
Speaker 1: me in our office tipping competition and in super Coach,
13:36
Speaker 1: So I can't let you go without asking what your
13:38
Speaker 1: tip is for Origin three.
13:39
Speaker 3: I am doing terribly in tipping and super coach, though
13:42
Speaker 3: that must mean you're doing even worse.
13:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, these things are relative.
13:46
Speaker 3: I'm a proud New South walesh and get very passionate
13:49
Speaker 3: about Origin. But I don't want to offend Lori daily
13:51
Speaker 3: because he seems We've got very upset at any criticism.
13:54
Speaker 3: But they're not going to win. Queensland will win. Sorry guys,
13:57
Speaker 3: sorry to say it. I hope we don't, but I
13:59
Speaker 3: think get been pretty badly. Sorry.
14:02
Speaker 1: It feels like it's time for generational change, doesn't it.
14:04
Speaker 1: Maybe they should make cur and four in the loose coach.
14:06
Speaker 3: Well, bring in Ivan Clary as soon as you can.
14:08
Speaker 3: That's my thought. It's another year of thinking we've got
14:11
Speaker 3: a pretty good team, but we just get been a
14:13
Speaker 3: superior collective in Queensland. Unfortunately.
14:16
Speaker 1: Well, Josh, I'll be waking up with you at four
14:19
Speaker 1: o'clock on Saturday morning. I'll be sending you a text
14:21
Speaker 1: to make sure you're installed in front of the sofa,
14:23
Speaker 1: and I'll be holding to your predictions.
14:25
Speaker 3: I'm going to call you. I'm going to call you
14:26
Speaker 3: and just make sure you're watching. Thanks Josh, Thank you.
14:35
Speaker 1: Josh Whittington is The Australian's national news edit up and
14:39
Speaker 1: he writes a must read soccer sorry football column at
14:43
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au, where you can follow
14:46
Speaker 1: all the World Cup action live