Oh, we do get it - but most football is broadcast on subscription television. It's only in the past few years that it really started getting mainstream attention, to the point where del Piero is playing for Sydney FC, and Manchester City bought into the Melbourne Heart.
But it's the Western Sydney Wanderers that will probably go down as one of the great Australian sporting stories. They made the A-League final in their maiden season last year (though they lost to the Central Coast Mariners), and are one game short of getting there again. They're the leading Australian team in the Asian Champions League, having downed Guangzhou Renhe 5-0 overnight to qualify for the knockout stage. WSW are the kind of team that could build a legend around themselves, like the South Sydney Rabbits in the NRL, or the Sydney Swans in the AFL. The problem is that all of it is broadcast on FOX Sports, rather than free-to-air. It's very surreal living square in the middle of Wanderers territory and not really being able to follow them.
The A-League is pretty small. There aren't even enough professional clubs in Australia and New Zealand to set up a tiered system, like the European clubs. Strangely enough, it wasn't the unprecedented success in Germany in 2006 that fuelled domestic interest, but the first-round elimination in South Africa in 2010 that did it. We pride ourselves on being a sporting nation, and love nothing more than a good underdog story. We had to fight hard to qualify - once upon a time we were in the same qualifying group as Uruguay and Argentina - and while the media seemed to think South Africa was a disaster, I think it really fuelled public interest in the domestic scene, to build up a talented, experienced squad that could not only qualify regularly, but advance beyond the pool stage.
We actually did bid for the 2022 World Cup, but went out in spectacular style, getting just a single vote. Mostly because our bid consisted of a video of animated kangaroos kicking a football across sweeping shots of the country while celebrities narrated their support for the team. Which looked nice, but didn't really give any plans for anything. If we can have a strong showing in Brazil, qualify for Russia and/or Qatar (ideally both) and expand the A-League to get a second division, then maybe we could have a serious crack at a 2026 bid (though I suspect FIFA will want to go back to Europe, so maybe it will have to be 2030).
