The place have been you when it occurred? When it felt like all the pieces modified?
Have been you curled up someplace in your front room, a blanket over your knees?
Have been you in a public sq. at 4am, squeezed up towards the shoulders of strangers? Or, perhaps, you have been there, within the huge open hand of the stadium; one face in a small flourish of inexperienced and gold that, in a blink, crammed up the horizon of the entire world?
Do you bear in mind what it felt like, the form and heft of that roar? Do you bear in mind the arc of the ball because it left Mat Leckie’s foot and rolled, as if shepherded by some invisible hand, into the underside nook of Kasper Schmeichel’s internet? Are you able to hear the sound of the web page turning?
Socceroos head coach Graham Arnold is staring up into the darkish sky above Al Janoub Stadium in southern Doha.
The trumpets and bells of the nationwide anthem swell round him as he gazes into the inky blackness, seeing nothing however the white lip of the rooftop that crests like a wave over the 40,000 folks and the historical past piling in under.
He sings the phrases of the anthem as if they’re a prayer, a hymn despatched out into this grand cathedral of metal and turf and glass.
Arnold isn’t a non secular man, however coming into this remaining group-stage match towards Denmark — an encounter that’s about a lot extra than simply that — he wants all the assistance and hope he can get.
The most important query coming into this sport was whether or not the Socceroos might match the power they harnessed of their thrilling 1-0 win towards Tunisia.
Barely a minute had handed earlier than we bought the reply: Christian Eriksen — Denmark’s born-again beating coronary heart — has already ghosted in behind Australia’s centre-backs and rifled off the sport’s first shot; a reminder of simply how simply all this may be performed and undone.
“Oh no,” somebody close to me whispers. Socceroos disciples have seen this movie earlier than. We all know the way it often ends.
The Socceroos don’t play towards the Danes within the first half a lot as climate them, shuttering their home windows and barricading their doorways towards the oncoming pink storm.
This isn’t a sport of battle and fireplace. This isn’t one other Tunisia. This can be a sport of battle and struggling, a warfare of attrition, a rationing of packets, a quiet waiting-out within the shadow of a bunker.
Mitch Duke — the header hero from a number of days in the past — has been chasing shadows. He tries to muscle his well beyond Denmark’s towering centre-backs however is rapidly suffocated again into line.
Riley McGree tries subsequent, skipping in direction of the highest of the field after the ball in some way falls his manner, however the Danish defence comes crashing in earlier than he has an opportunity to blink.
That is how the primary half unfolds: a seemingly countless interval of stress, and a sense of creeping inevitability.
The Danes are taller, stronger, sooner, and slicker as they slice the sluggish Socceroos aside.
From the opening whistle, the Socceroos have moved at half-pace, as if the warmth of the Doha day had turn out to be one thing stable, one thing they needed to wade by, like troopers waist-deep in a lavatory.
However they’ve been right here earlier than, this band of brothers.
The previous four-and-a-half years have been one lengthy night time spent with their backs towards the Earth.
They know the way it feels to endure. They’d one of many longest World Cup qualification campaigns in historical past, 20 video games unfold out over 1,000 countless days, with a number of pandemic lockdowns grinding them down in between.
Their outcomes had slumped, their squad lacked depth, their home league was waning, and so they watched the religion of a once-adoring public begin to fade, eclipsed by the lengthy shadow of the ‘Golden Era’, towards whom they’ve at all times been measured.
So that they throw themselves at Denmark, this pack of determined males.
It isn’t fairly or clear or choreographed. It’s messy and ugly and uncooked. They didn’t come all this fashion solely to fake they aren’t who they’re, that they aren’t all the pieces they’ve been by, that they haven’t been hardened by all this and extra.
“What we have been by, these 4 years, it hasn’t been straightforward,” Socceroos defender Aziz Behich stated.
“The qualification course of has simply made us stronger, with COVID, lots of people writing us off throughout these play-offs. However we saved that noise out.
“What this group is able to, I am undecided the place it may possibly cease.
“Proper at the start, when Arnie took over, that was the very first thing he wished to verify we had: that camaraderie, that brotherhood, that friendship. That was the primary factor.
Arnie stated that when Australians’ backs are towards the wall, when you have got that bond within the change room, the world’s your oyster.
“We had that interval — the golden technology — they helped us on the map. Individuals revered us extra. However that died out just a little bit,” Behich stated.
“Hopefully, we are the subsequent step serving to the youthful guys incomes a bit extra respect. In all honesty, if I might sum it up, it is the graft for us Australians.”
‘Dream large’
Arnold had spoken about retaining feelings in examine, however this sport was all about feeling.
Each deal with, each clearance, each block, each move was formed and colored by it, by the sensation that they have been written-off, doubted, by no means nearly as good because the final guys, by the sensation that they’d some extent to show.
So, within the second half, they proved it. The Socceroos slowly made up floor, inching ahead collectively.
The Danes pressed additional, squeezing them in from either side, making an attempt to cleave them in two.
Everybody defended as if their lives relied on it.
An Eriksen nook is fizzed throughout objective, the closest probability but, the scrape of an uncovered nerve.
And that is when it occurred. Like a bolt out of the air.
After an hour of combating towards what felt just like the inevitable, the ball spins out of the yellow trench and falls to the younger McGree.
He is virtually shocked to have obtained it, unfamiliar with the texture of it on his toe. He turns into the bizarre inexperienced nation past and sees only one man, one second.
Do you bear in mind the place you have been?
“I had another man to beat,” Leckie stated of what occurred subsequent.
“First, I wished to chop inside, and he form of went that manner. So, simply within the second, I went left once more and swung the left boot. Then I noticed the ball was rolling in.
“You noticed the emotion. I did not actually know what to do. I used to be simply pounding my chest. As soon as the boys bought collectively, the entire bench was there.
“It simply exhibits how a lot of a crew we’re, whether or not the boys are beginning or coming off the bench or not getting any sport time. Everybody’s there for one another.
“As a younger boy, you dream large. Once I determined that I wished to [be] a footballer, watching the Socceroos might’ve been the rationale at the back of my head [for] why I dedicated to being a footballer.
“It is moments like this that construct the sport and, probably, give younger youngsters inspiration to go on and wish to be a footballer sooner or later.
“I feel it is potential if you happen to give all the pieces. That is one thing I at all times strived to do after I was a younger man. Head down, work laborious. I feel that is one of many primary the reason why I’ve had a reasonably profitable profession, due to my drive and my battle.
“Hopefully, that second right now and the end result evokes different youngsters.”
Arnie’s message to the Socceroos
Because the final remnant of the Socceroos’ “Golden Era”, Arnold has been this crew’s nice historian, its keeper of secrets and techniques, its translator of lore, its remaining true believer.
He has saved the outdated spirit alive, and now, with this group of 26 younger males, has taken this crew again to the place he at all times knew it could possibly be, even when no person else did.
No matter occurs subsequent towards the may of Messi’s Argentina, this outdated gray Socceroo’s legacy is already set in stone. He has not simply proven us who we’re, but additionally who we might be.
“We began this journey four-and-a-half years in the past,” Arnold’s assistant, René Meulensteen, stated.
“Once we first bought collectively, that is what [Arnold] stated: ‘I wish to create the best Socceroos crew ever’. And that message has been an underlying message and motivation that is carried us by the entire four-and-a-half years. With all of the hindrances that we have had.
“There’s so many issues that add up. However the one factor, when it is performed, it has created huge energy from inside. And everyone [is] shopping for into that. The best Socceroos crew ever.
“To try this, we needed to qualify for the World Cup. We knew from the phrase go that we have been going to do one thing particular.
“Now these guys are heroes for a lifetime.”
Arnold is trying up into the sky. The trumpets and bells are swelling. Now the entire nation is there, standing by his aspect, following his gaze right into a future that now we have by no means identified however which now we have at all times, at all times dreamt about.
Do you bear in mind the place you have been? Are you able to hear the sound of the web page turning?