You may remember the award for Oceanie Team Of The Century awarded by the IFFHS - whose dinner was postponed until May this year? Well, that was last week. Many famous faces were there, and by all reports a good time was had by the South contingent - especially Jimmy Armstrong. Anyway, only rraqson I didn't post anything was because, well, I'm waiting for the video footage to be released by SMFCTV. But in the meantime, here's a curious piece of commentary written yesterday by Mark Hawthorne in The Age's Sporting Life section.
Hellas of a decision
THE Football Federation of History and Statistics has named the ''club of the century'' for each confederation. Real Madrid gets the award for Europe. CA Penarol Montevideo in South America. Al-Hilal FC Riyadh in Asia.
And in Oceana? Try South Melbourne, a club that struts its stuff in Melbourne's suburbs. Hellas gets the gong because of its history of success in the old National Soccer League, but it's a glaring symbol of the problems in Australian soccer.
Is that some kind of backhanded compliment against us? Well done on the trophies, but thanks for holding the game back? Or is it more a case of, these guys are pretty successful, and the current Australian soccer regime should treat them with a bit more respect, like, what are they doing playing in a suburban comp? I hope it's the latter, but I can't tell.
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