Australia learns joy of real footy

The sport that most Australians call footy (and most English people Australian No Rules Football) generally has scores in the low hundreds (six points for a goal, one, deliciously, for a behind). Goals are cheap. It is the uniquely high value of the currency in football (soccer if you must) that makes the sport as remarkably prone to explosive drama as it is to angst-ridden longeurs.

One goal, one measly goal, and a bitterly disputed one at that, and it looked certain to do for the Aussies. Japan were dominating possession and style with their slick midfield. A second goal frequently looked likely, and it would have killed the game off. But one goal it was, and as the match edged towards its close, it looked likely to be just enough.

And then the match turned and stood on its head: a sudden cataract of goals and emotions and it was all about Japanese tears and Australian song. Only football can do this because only in football does a goal matter so much. The explosion of release at a goal is something no other sport does in the same way. In Australian Rules, a goal is a kiss on the lips, in football, it’s an orgasm.

That’s what all Australia is learning. No sport is intrinsically superior to any other, but football has the most basic appeal of them all. There are sophisticated pleasures in football, and sophisticated ways to watch the game, but the moment of a goal releases the most basic instinct in sport. There’ll be Vegemite sandwiches on the ceiling and tinnies all over the floor at the mad topsy-turvy joy of it all.

Australia are in the World Cup finals for the first time since 1974, and they have done so with a team that reflect modern Australia. No, not rugged, uncompromising and bristle-chinned, and no corks on the hats, either. Rather, this was a team that represented a self-confident, well-travelled and multicultural approach to life. And it was a match in which Australia were welcomed into the commonwealth of football.

And they can teach the Poms a few things about sport, and not for the first time. They showed England how to deal with heat: you keep bloody running. England wilted on Saturday, Australia never stopped, and that is why they won. Here is the moral of the match for the England team: heart is not temperature dependent.

Yokishatsu Kawaguchi, the Japan goalkeeper, might have knocked the heart out of Australia with one save of genuine brilliance and another that was pretty damn good. But Australia just kept coming and got their reward. In all cultures, a goalkeeper is the most uniquely vulnerable of players and Kawaguchi followed a fine save with a ghastly cock-up, coming for a long throw and failing to get back.

Tim Cahill, of Everton, scored an equaliser, and then got the second with a belter of a shot that went in off two posts. John Aloisi scored the last and Australia learnt the hideous addictions of football. Australian footballing virgins might like to know that their next opponents are Brazil. No worries, eh?