In Bandwagon Nation, we love old mate, thingy and Graham Arnold

Here at Bandwagon Nation (pop. 25 million, cap. city Canberra), just because everyone’s arrived late doesn’t mean it can’t be a party loud enough to wake a sleeping giant.

Bandwagon Industries has been working overtime manufacturing new heroes. Harry Souttar? A fortnight ago Australia hadn’t heard of him, and when he speaks in his Aberdeen brogue they still can’t understand him. But so what – they know a brick outhouse when they see one, and this guy embodies all the qualities long admired in Scottish sons of Australian mothers.

Maty Ryan and Mathew Leckie? Welcome mats at each end, hands and feet, defence and attack. Mitch Duke? What a cute kid. Aaron Mooy? Resembles an opposable thumb in all the best ways: doesn’t speak but you can’t do without him.

Nor does it matter that the Grey Wiggle and the Sudanese-Australian crew aren’t on the field. Far from sulking in the dugout, they are as happy as you would be with the best seats in the house. They are all wearing the Bandwagon Fragrance, and it smells like team spirit.

The Socceroos’ campaign also captures an unyielding determination that johnny-come-latelys with their elementary grasp of the beautiful game can identify with. It’s simple, and it can be crude, but it’s us. Tunisia tried to bully Australia, and Australia said not today, sunshine. Denmark tried to dazzle Australia, and Australia said we’re Graham Arnold’s boys, we’re not impressed by you and your fancy lighting. Argentina’s next. Even the bandwagon-jumpers have heard of Lionel Messi. But Argentina went down to Saudi Arabia, didn’t they?

They’re as prone to frustration and panic as any side when they come up against Arnold’s Socceroos, and if they think we will be easy, we’ve got two words for them: Charlie Yankos.

Credit: Illustration: Simon Letch

After 37 years playing and coaching with Australia (including in that 1988 match with Yankos – go on, it’s on YouTube), Arnold is the best-known Socceroo and a talisman who has the rare ability to speak not only to his players but to Bandwagon Nation.

They’re not playing just for their communities and families, groups and sub-groups, he’s telling them; they are Australia’s unifying sports team, and if 25 million casual onlookers have sketchy knowledge of them as individuals, they will quickly rally around the symbols and the colours. This is a true philosophy of representation.

Arnold is a sporting analogue of Anthony Albanese: as fashionable as Lowes chinos, ground to a hard pebble by years of being walked over, an unexpectedly good fit for here and now.

Fielding so many relative unknowns was a perceived weakness that Arnold has turned into a strength. In anonymity is unity. Contrast these Socceroos with the Golden Generation of 2006, which had lots of stars, lots of egos. The current group is more of a Copper Generation, cheaper but functional.

Even the commentators during the first Test in Perth are talking about the world game.Credit: Getty

So stark is the contrast with the atmospheric vacuum in which Australia’s cricketers are playing in Perth, Arnold’s claim that the Socceroos are our national team is looking less like a motivational tool and more like a wind vane. A significant moment in the week’s cricket was when the commentators finally gave up trying to say something about the game they were paid to watch and began chatting about how much they were enjoying the soccer.

Some might see that as a form of gatecrashing, exploiting another sport that is suddenly attracting more attention than theirs. I saw it as the great Australian ecumenical love of sport, breaking its boundaries and bringing everyone in.

It can be hard to believe at times, but sports do belong to people, and most people just love good sport. They take little interest in those tiresome pissing contests between the suits. The NRL and the AFL going at each other … zzzzz … If I want something to put me to sleep, I’d rather an afternoon nap after a night up watching the Socceroos.

It’s not as if football needs a successful World Cup campaign to win the battle for participation. Soccer has been winning that contest for many years with or without the Socceroos. And in the long run, it knows it is going to be the winner because it will still be a going concern a generation from now when the concussion codes become a relic, like boxing, of a less-informed past. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

The atmosphere around today’s Socceroos reminds me of when athletes like Michelle Ford, Debbie Flintoff, Dean Lukin and the Mean Machine were winning Olympic gold medals for Australia. Few had heard of them before, but they became household names overnight because an Olympic Games gold medal was so rare and seemed so unattainable.

Everyone loves a winner. And there’s nothing wrong with that.Credit: Getty

Bandwagon-jumping? Sure, when can we get on? Global sports give us perspective by reducing us to our proper size and making the big achievements so much more precious.

When Duncan Armstrong won the 200 mertres freestyle in Seoul in 1988, it was 16 years since any Australian had won a gold medal at an Olympic Games attended by all the big nations. It mattered, and you feel that the Socceroos are mattering in Qatar in a similar way.

Australians might look inwards for much of the year, but we have a keen curiosity about our place in the world, a curiosity that can only be satisfied by involvement in global competition. The bandwagon’s wheels will come off again, as they always do, but for now it shows a genuine appreciation for the achievement in getting anywhere near the top of a global sporting event.

Of course, those who already had Milos Degenek and Aziz Behich posters on their walls deserve VIP access, be it in Qatar or Federation Square. They were with the Socceroos first, and they’ll be there last. But the spirit that Graham Arnold has fostered is that nobody is excluded, even those who don’t know one end of a soccer ball from the other. It’s been a joyous surprise, this ride, and it seats 25 million.

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