A-League Men coaches have urged the league to capitalise on the Socceroos’ World Cup-based explosion in popularity to build the popularity and profile of the domestic league.
The Socceroos’ brilliant run to the round of 16, including two victories and a gutsy loss to Argentina, inspired massive crowds at live sites and a wealth of support.
Victory coach and former Socceroos defender Tony Popovic pointed to Adelaide’s Craig Goodwin and Melbourne City’s Mathew Leckie as players who underlined the league’s quality.
“Everyone (was) supporting here in Australia, getting up at the early hours of the morning to come out and support. We want that to transfer and get some new fans to the A-Leagues,” he told reporters.
“They’ve seen that the product is good. The players that they were cheering for, celebrating the goals that they scored are players that they can see week in, week out here.
“We all have to do our part and it starts with us playing good football, keeping the product at a high level and then all together we have to strive towards filling the stadiums.
“If we do that, our product can only grow, it can only get better and I’m sure we’ll see more and more young talented players playing for the Socceroos from the A-League.”
Socceroos great and Western United coach John Aloisi believed a level of hype would automatically lift interest in the league, which needed to market its quality.
“I’ve always said that our standard’s very high here in the A-League and now I think people start to believe it,” he told reporters.
“We know how difficult it is for foreigners that come in and that have played at a high level – they can’t believe how high the standard is.
“That’s the message that has to keep on going out: ‘come to A-League games’ because once the atmosphere is there, the games are good anyway.
“They’re exciting to watch. There’s a lot of goals, it’s end to end, there’s a lot going on. There’s so many upsets because anyone can beat anyone. It’s a very even league, one of the most even throughout the world.
“So they just need to keep on doing that and making sure that everyone knows about the league, just get it out there as much as possible.”
Western Sydney coach Mark Rudan urged the Australian Professional Leagues and Football Australia to use the Socceroos’ success as an opportunity to develop and resource the game and earn government support.
“We have missed moments in the past and that’s unfortunate. (We had) the 2006 World Cup, the 2015 Asian Cup and nothing really changed,” he told AAP.
“Third time around we need to put a lot of pressure on government officials – like the NRL and AFL are able to.”