Hmmmm, this date ring a bell with anyone? 
Here's a good article from The Age about the last 12 months since 'that night'.
AT 10.30am tomorrow, 16 Australian soccer players will slip quietly through the departure gate at Sydney airport and board a plane bound for Tokyo. No dictaphones will trouble their path. There will be no questions.
A year to the day since Australia qualified for the World Cup, nothing captures the new reality of soccer in this nation more eloquently than the practised ease with which the Matildas have criss-crossed Asia during the past 12 months in pursuit of sporting glory.
Now, with her team preparing to face Japan in a friendly on Sunday, Matildas captain Cheryl Salisbury has been named as one of the final 20 candidates for the FIFA women's world-player-of-the-year award.
She says that without the events of the past 12 months, set in motion by Australia's move into Asia but thrown into warp speed by the Socceroos' performance in Germany, that accolade would never have come.
"I don't think so because, before, we wouldn't have had the exposure," she said. "People wouldn't have been paying attention. So I think the move into Asia has been a really important part of it all — that, and the attention that Australian football generally now attracts, especially since the guys did so well at the World Cup."
This, more than anything, is the face of Australian soccer today. Where once our national teams were starved for regular, meaningful international competition, now they are fed to the point of explosion. Indeed, yesterday the Socceroos played out a 1-1 draw with Ghana in a friendly in London.
There's little doubt that even if events a year ago had not fallen the Socceroos' way, most of these changes would still have taken place.
Reflecting on the anniversary, departing Football Federation Australia chief executive John O'Neill says that he had two speeches prepared for the post-game news conference on November 16, 2005.
The first anticipated qualification. "(The second) basically said, 'Yes, we've lost, but life goes on — and we've got the move into Asia and the continued growth of the A-League to look forward to'," O'Neill said.
"And obviously we would have been disappointed to have to give that speech, but I think we would have, with reason, been telling a credible story."
But qualification accelerated the resurgence— and nothing illustrates that better than the shift our standing overseas has made in the 12 months since.
In the pre-Kaiserslautern years, Australia was greeted in the corridors of power in much the same way that, say, Romania would be greeted in rugby union — with polite, well-meaning condescension. Now, Australia counts for something. It has greater clout at the negotiating table. Its feelings — or, at the very least, our FIFA representatives' votes — are thought important enough that chief Sepp Blatter will grovellingly pander to our sense of post-World Cup injustice. The roster of friendlies is filling up fast.
"That's probably the best measure of the respect that we now have," FFA head of operations Mat Carroll said. "Before the World Cup, whenever we would try to organise friendlies, it was very much a case of, 'Don't call us, we'll call you'. Now we're flooded with approaches from all sorts of different countries. Now they're coming to us."
For all the upbeat patter, the sport's administrators remain aware that the roots of "new football" remain shallow.
According to Carroll, the challenges of the future are being addressed. At a meeting of A-League club chief executives last month, foundations were laid for a range of reforms.
These included the increase of the A-League squad sizes to 23 (the salary cap will also be boosted to $1.7 million); the creation of a youth or B-League; and the expansion of competition for clubs into other leagues, with the possibility of a partnership with the US Major Soccer League to play a regular pre- or post-season tournament.
Probably the most significant change over the next 12 months springs from amendments to FFA playing regulations. From January 1, all Australian clubs and players — amateur and professional — will be registered directly to FFA.
This will replace the mosaic of misunderstanding that used to exist between the countless local and provincial playing associations, and allow FFA direct access to, and control over, the participation base that is the life blood of the sport.
"That will achieve one of the core goals we've set for ourselves, which is reaching back into the community," Carroll said.
In the meantime, the Socceroos will continue to ride Asia's bewildering conveyor belt of meaningful matches unperturbed. O'Neill has a favourite expression for this: "Our dance card is full — it's suddenly consistent year in, year out."
More than anything, the past 12 months have shown that if soccer is to become a long-term success in Australia, it has to dance. The first movements have been jerky, but the rhythm is now starting to set in.
Here's a good article from The Age about the last 12 months since 'that night'.
AT 10.30am tomorrow, 16 Australian soccer players will slip quietly through the departure gate at Sydney airport and board a plane bound for Tokyo. No dictaphones will trouble their path. There will be no questions.
A year to the day since Australia qualified for the World Cup, nothing captures the new reality of soccer in this nation more eloquently than the practised ease with which the Matildas have criss-crossed Asia during the past 12 months in pursuit of sporting glory.
Now, with her team preparing to face Japan in a friendly on Sunday, Matildas captain Cheryl Salisbury has been named as one of the final 20 candidates for the FIFA women's world-player-of-the-year award.
She says that without the events of the past 12 months, set in motion by Australia's move into Asia but thrown into warp speed by the Socceroos' performance in Germany, that accolade would never have come.
"I don't think so because, before, we wouldn't have had the exposure," she said. "People wouldn't have been paying attention. So I think the move into Asia has been a really important part of it all — that, and the attention that Australian football generally now attracts, especially since the guys did so well at the World Cup."
This, more than anything, is the face of Australian soccer today. Where once our national teams were starved for regular, meaningful international competition, now they are fed to the point of explosion. Indeed, yesterday the Socceroos played out a 1-1 draw with Ghana in a friendly in London.
There's little doubt that even if events a year ago had not fallen the Socceroos' way, most of these changes would still have taken place.
Reflecting on the anniversary, departing Football Federation Australia chief executive John O'Neill says that he had two speeches prepared for the post-game news conference on November 16, 2005.
The first anticipated qualification. "(The second) basically said, 'Yes, we've lost, but life goes on — and we've got the move into Asia and the continued growth of the A-League to look forward to'," O'Neill said.
"And obviously we would have been disappointed to have to give that speech, but I think we would have, with reason, been telling a credible story."
But qualification accelerated the resurgence— and nothing illustrates that better than the shift our standing overseas has made in the 12 months since.
In the pre-Kaiserslautern years, Australia was greeted in the corridors of power in much the same way that, say, Romania would be greeted in rugby union — with polite, well-meaning condescension. Now, Australia counts for something. It has greater clout at the negotiating table. Its feelings — or, at the very least, our FIFA representatives' votes — are thought important enough that chief Sepp Blatter will grovellingly pander to our sense of post-World Cup injustice. The roster of friendlies is filling up fast.
"That's probably the best measure of the respect that we now have," FFA head of operations Mat Carroll said. "Before the World Cup, whenever we would try to organise friendlies, it was very much a case of, 'Don't call us, we'll call you'. Now we're flooded with approaches from all sorts of different countries. Now they're coming to us."
For all the upbeat patter, the sport's administrators remain aware that the roots of "new football" remain shallow.
According to Carroll, the challenges of the future are being addressed. At a meeting of A-League club chief executives last month, foundations were laid for a range of reforms.
These included the increase of the A-League squad sizes to 23 (the salary cap will also be boosted to $1.7 million); the creation of a youth or B-League; and the expansion of competition for clubs into other leagues, with the possibility of a partnership with the US Major Soccer League to play a regular pre- or post-season tournament.
Probably the most significant change over the next 12 months springs from amendments to FFA playing regulations. From January 1, all Australian clubs and players — amateur and professional — will be registered directly to FFA.
This will replace the mosaic of misunderstanding that used to exist between the countless local and provincial playing associations, and allow FFA direct access to, and control over, the participation base that is the life blood of the sport.
"That will achieve one of the core goals we've set for ourselves, which is reaching back into the community," Carroll said.
In the meantime, the Socceroos will continue to ride Asia's bewildering conveyor belt of meaningful matches unperturbed. O'Neill has a favourite expression for this: "Our dance card is full — it's suddenly consistent year in, year out."
More than anything, the past 12 months have shown that if soccer is to become a long-term success in Australia, it has to dance. The first movements have been jerky, but the rhythm is now starting to set in.
