The problem with the A-League is it's completely artificial and that's had a flow on effect on the national team.
Before 2005 we used to have the NSL, which was comprised mostly of ethnic teams. My local clubs are Marconi Stallions (Italian), Bossy Liverpool (Bosnian) and Bonnyrigg White Eagles (Serbian). These clubs have history and established links with the local area, but the A-League was purposefully created to remove the influence that ethnic clubs had on Australian football, because of bullshyt fears about rioting and violence and all that. So now they play in local leagues and have no pathway to the top flight. It's hard to feel any type of way about franchises like Sydney FC or Western Sydney Wanderers because they don't have any real community links or history.
Pretty much all of the Australian golden generation of footballers in the 90s and 00s came out of ethnic clubs. Christian Vieri and Harry Kewell started their careers at Marconi Stallions, Mark Viduka and Josip Simunic at Melbourne Croatia, Brett Emerton and Tim Cahill at Sydney Olympic (a Greek club), and so on.
Since the A-League switch the ethnic clubs have diminished in significance, and the talent has begun to dry up which reflects in the performance of the national team as well as the lack of Australian footballers playing at top European clubs. Our best player today plays for Crystal Palace, 20 years ago the majority played Champions League football.
Brazil straight outclassed them in every way possible, but it was just an own goal that separate them. On top of that France straight doubled them in chances created, shots and shots on targets. The game could have gone another hour and they still would never have scored.
so you've just got to soldier through a few sleepless nights
