Two Nights in November: Association Football and the Australian Collective Sporting Culture

Australia's sporting folklore may be said to be comprised of a combination of calendar events (the last Saturday in September; the first Tuesday in November), revered names (Don Bradman; Cathy Freeman; Phar Lap) and historic occasions (the Melbourne and Sydney Olympic games; Cricket's tied tests). The place in this national dialogue of the most played and watched sport on the planet-Association Football, or Soccer-was for long not so much peripheral as non-existent. That was up until the night of 16 November 2005, when Australia defeated Uruguay in Sydney and thus qualified for the finals of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Ever since, the ubiquitous image of John Aloisi's winning penalty goal-the defining moment of what has become colloquially known as 'the Uruguay game'-has signalled the acceptance of Association Football into the everyday culture of sport in this country.