Close your eyes for a moment, rewind three weeks before this FIFA Men’s World Cup and picture Mathew Leckie and Craig Goodwin running around in their respective Isuzu UTE A-League kits. Then picture them now.
Perceptions count for a lot in the world game, and the last 360 Socceroos minutes have changed the face of Australian football and A-League.
All of a sudden, A-Leagues games are box office, after a record-shattering World Cup campaign for the Socceroos and domestic-based players, with eight featuring in the Qatar 2022 squad, five getting minutes and two – Leckie and Goodwin – scoring, assisting and starring.
Jamie Maclaren had notable cameos, and Garang Kuol – who became the youngest player to feature in the World Cup knockout phase since Pele in 1958 – almost spoiled the party of another all-time great Lionel Messi, and with a late chance that could’ve turned the World Cup on its head.
After an unforgettable if unexpected fortnight where hundreds of thousands of fans flocked to live sites around Australia, underlining the national and unifying power of the sport, the Aussie spotlight will rightfully switch to the underrated Isuzu UTE A-League Men’s competition, which resumes Friday/Saturday.
Melbourne City (led by Leckie, Maclaren and Marco Tilio), Adelaide United (Goodwin), Central Coast (Kuol, Jason Cummings and Danny Vukovic) and Sydney FC (Andrew Redmayne) will be in full focus this weekend, when they resume for Round 7 after a short World Cup break.
“We’ve proved a lot of people that we can really compete at the top level, and there’s not many people that really believed that. There’s obviously some do, but I think you just show how much heart we really do have,” Leckie said.
“We might not be in the world scale, the best individual players. But I do believe that we’re the best team, collectively. And you saw it in every game what we achieved, no one thought we could ever achieve. We (lost) to the defending champion and got knocked out by one of the best nations of the world.
“So yeah, we can be super proud.”
Goodwin starred on the left wing, starting the first three games and scoring Australia’s first 2022 World Cup goal to briefly threaten an almighty boilover against France, before a Kylian Mbappe-inspired comeback.
His impact against Argentina was immense, taking the shot that brought it back to 2-1 and whipping in the late cross that led to Garang Kuol’s chance.
Goodwin, who’s played in Holland and Saudi Arabia, is happy playing in front of family and friends at hometown club Adelaide United, and eager to carry in his stellar A-League form that provided him with the platform to star at Qatar 2022.
“We hope what we’ve achieved can help grow the game back home because the A-League is better than its perceived as is the quality of Australian football. It has been for a long time, we hope this can put it on the map and help it grow,” Goodwin said.
“We hope that we’ve inspired the next generation of young Australian boys and girls to push themselves and do even better than what we’ve achieved here.”
Goodwin believes grassroots investment is the key to Socceroos and A-Leagues success.
“It comes from the group trying to keep culture but also grassroots of Australian football. The more we can do and the better we can build to encourage young players to match it with best in the world best players, the better chance we have in future of doing better at (World Cups),” he said.
“We have the Aussie DNA. If we can produce the same level with technical and tactical ability with some of the European and South American countries. If we can hit that mark in those aspects, with our Aussie DNA, we can do something special. We believe, but there’s work to be done.”
Rewind back to January 2019, and Maclaren was a Socceroos fringe player – yet to score in eight games, and had just finished a tough European stint.
Many said it was an easy option coming ‘home’, and he has won three successive golden boot gongs since, bagging 70 goals. He not only broke his Socceroos duck after signing for City, but scored eight Socceroos goals since and looked dangerous in his brief stints on the pitch
“Hopefully we can inspire more younger players to want to play for the (Socceroos) and play at this level,” Maclaren said.
“I hope it does do something gives fire in the belly to some fans – goals, big moments can really inspire kids and families to come watch our game. One thing I’ll say about the A-League is there’s goals.
“Games are coming thick and fast around Christmas time. And we’ve seen the cities produce good crowds for to watch the soccer games. There’s a lot of football coming up. And we just hope that there’s going to be a generational shift and the boys coming back from the World Cup can really inspire younger kids and families and come to games.”
The Liberty A-League Women’s will also benefit, but that competition will get a direct shot in the arm later in the season and the start of next season, which comes off the back of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to co-host a FIFA Women’s World Cup with New Zealand.