dyertribe said:
All true.
At the end of the day, whilst there have been times over the past 30 years when we were either very unlucky not to make it or simply not good enough, it can never hide the fact that we've been screwed over by the game's administrators in this time. We've NEVER been given a fair go- never given the chance to prepare ourselves as other teams have been able to do.
I laughed when people ridiculed Oceania getting a direct WC place in 2002 (which was then taken away), saying that it was so easy. Well, just look at the Asian qualifiers- four teams already have qualified and their places were never in any real doubt. Likewise just look at the CONCACAF and COMNEBOL qualifiers, it's actually not that hard to qualify if you're a half decent side- unlike Europe or Africa, you can actually have a run of very poor results and still make it with something to spare.
All this indicates what's wrong with recent World Cups, and why the 2002 World Cup was a very poor one. FIFA's allocation of places (do Asia or CONCACAF really deserve an extra place??) and dodgy/rigged draws even in stronger confederations do little to help the actual quality of the tournament which is what World Cups, European Championships, etc are supposed to be about. It's rewarding mediocrity, and you can see why many of us feel aggrieved about the Socceroos not being there that year- we are clearly better than at least half of the sides which made it.
And we aren't the only ones who have a right to feel aggrieved either, because the likes of Holland, Romania and Iran will also feel they should have been there ahead of many far less deserving sides.
World Cups in previous years were great to watch because there weren't as many bona fide dud sides allowed to walk in. You could say that there weren't as many teams playing in it and that's true, but the problem isn't the number of teams in the World Cup but the composition. Qualifying in the old days was a genuine achievement, even if you weren't going to do that well once you got there. That's certainly true for Australia in 1974, as despite not winning a game or scoring, they were the only one of the "makeweights" (the other two being Zaire aka DR Congo, and Haiti) to end with a point.
Back then, we actually had a fairer deal than what we've been treated to in the last 20 years because Australia and NZ went through the Asian qualifiers so at least knew who we'd play- it should have stayed that way. FIFA taking us for a ride around the world only started with the qualifiers for '86.
But in light of everything that I've just said, we really, really should qualify for the World Cup this time round. It'd be a travesty if we missed the boat this time.
