Back after 32 years （如果时光倒流32年）
The 2 teams － Australia and the USA played their opening games on the same day． One team came away happy and the other not so happy． Having moved to Australia many years ago as a professional footballer － it was nice to see my adopted country record its first ever win in a World Cup． When I arrived in Brisbane，situated on the east coast of Australia，so many years ago － the last thing on Australias‘mind was the World Cup．
It was a new country with only 17 million people who were and still are sports mad． However ‘football’ as the rest of the world calls it is not called ‘football’ in Australia and is not the number one sports las in so many other countries．
There are 4 other sporting codes that attract a greater following － Rugby League，Rugby Union，Australian Rules，and Cricket． Soccer（as it is called in the Antipodes）came in a distant 5th － why do we and the USA call it soccer? Australia has Australian Rules and The USA has American football，which is their football respectively，so media and federations decided to call the game soccer and not football．
That‘s also the reason so many English teachers from the USA and Australia teach the word soccer and not football to Chinese students．
Now back to football． It was one of those games that had more controversy than all the other games put together，a Japan goal that should not have been，a penalty that should have been，and 3 goals from Australia in the last 6 minutes to give them their first ever win in a World Cup． Today though，all the talk will be about the referee who made so many bad decisions． In the end there were 3 points for Australia which will be great for football（“O” sorry soccer）back in Australia． The USA will have to go back to the drawing board after their hiding from the Czech Republic．
Australia will play Brazil next． Perhaps another upset is in the offing－ perhaps not BUT do not discount the “never say die” attitude of the Aussies！
Who would have given them ay hope of winning this game with 6 minutes to go and 1－0 down the best we could hope for was a draw perhaps，not this Aussie team “you beauty” a 3－1 win． I still have to pinch myself． |