The Socceroos’ Asian Cup performance has given a massive boost to the game locally

THE Socceroos’ Asian Cup campaign has given birth to a new generation of heroes for Australian kids to emulate.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - JANUARY 31: Fans arrive for the 2015 Asian Cup final match between Korea Republic and the Australian Socceroos at ANZ Stadium on January 31, 2015 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

The Cup has been won and lost, and a hugely successful tournament has finished, but that’s not the most important thing. The big picture is about where football fits in the domestic sporting landscape and it’s about where Australia fits in the international geography of the game.

The Asian Cup has shown just how culturally diverse a nation we have become in recent times. If nothing else that has been proven by the record attendances at the games watching teams from countries we’d rarely heard of even 20 years ago. I think we all too often get wrapped up in who we are at conflict with and lose sight of just how friendly a place the world can be if we actually embrace different nationalities.

This competition has been played in the true spirit of friendship and cooperation and once again Australia has proven just how good it is at staging international events.

Even Sepp Blatter has come out and said we could stage a World Cup. The cynical side of me thinks that is just political spin for votes as he starts his campaign to retain his chair as head of FIFA but that aside he is right.

And given the precedent we have now set who knows what would happen should we decide to bid again ... it has to come back to Asia sometime in the not too distant future.

So where to now for the Socceroos? Locally the game has received a massive boost from the Cup as a whole but more importantly from the performance of the national team. Once again they have endeared themselves to the sporting public.

Young by comparison and brash, full of enthusiasm and belief, they play with the kind of cockiness that Australians are renowned for. Coach Ange Postecoglou said at the start he wanted to bring back the Aussie spirit and in that he has delivered ... there is more than a bit of larrikin in the character of the team.

And it is a team, not just a group of individuals pretending to be one!

More and more kids are playing the game and Socceroo success just keeps the numbers growing. That they have been successful on home shores just increases the popularity of the game.

On the beach in last weekend there were enough footballs bouncing up and down to make me think I was in Rio and not Sydney. At Glenelg on Australia Day Colley Reserve was full of ‘soccer’ balls with not a footy or cricket ball spotted.

This is the legacy of the Socceroos’ Asian Cup campaign. It has given birth to a new generation of heroes for the kids to emulate.

For a long time we were trapped in the time-warp of the Golden Generation that went to Germany in ‘06. Now it’s Mass Luongo and Mat Ryan or Trent Sainsbury that the next raft of youngsters want to become.

So next step is the bigger stage of the World Cup. Qualifying matches aren’t that far away and we need to go to Russia in 2018 to keep the momentum. As much as the Asian Cup is important for our regional development the eye always has to be on the main prize.

We saw an inkling of what the ‘new’ Socceroos had to offer in Brazil last year and we have certainly seen what they are capable of in this current campaign with the benefit of experience. Not for a minute am I saying we can win it but over the next three years we can build our reputation and become team that will be feared by those in our group when we get there ... and this squad is good enough to do it.