I confess to getting a little misty-eyed for the A-League. Yes, I know, better dig in - six months and all that. Watching the gladiators of "footy" thunder back into the arena with all the nuance of a set of white goods hasn't helped (though it did inspire me to check out the latest Good Guys catalogue).
What makes a great footy player? Who knows. Judging from the promos it has something to do with neck circumference. Bigness infects every aspect of these codes. The players are big, the tackles are big and the scores are big. It's all topped off with a great flatulence of hyperbole splashed across the sports pages of the dailies.
In the footy codes - size not only matters, increasingly it's all that matters. As rugby league identity Phil Gould opined in this week's Sun Herald, big is not always beautiful. Mourning the disappearance of the game's skill positions, Gould ruminated on why players with smaller body types were not persevering through the junior ranks. The reluctance of twig-thin littlies to do battle against 90-kilo Polynesian kids in the Under 12s could have something to do with it. That's not to disparage the genetically robust, but simply to underline that in some games how you look may be a good indicator as to whether you get a look in.
Certainly there's no denying the physical gulf between the codes. The median weight of a Brisbane Roar outfield player is 22 kilos less than his counterpart in the title-winning rugby league side, St George. AFL heavyweights, Collingwood, also carried a considerable height and weight advantage over the boys up north. But, as the last game of A-league season six proved, that means squat.
Four frantic minutes tell the story: from the moment Brisbane's diminutive number 10, Henrique, inspired his side's epic grand final comeback; to the dying seconds of extra time when a towering Erik Paartalu headed home to send the result to penalties. Henrique stands just 165cm and weighs as much as a ham sandwich; Paartalu is a somewhat more imposing specimen at 193cm and 87 kilos. That's the tall and the short of it, literally, which only goes to prove in the game of football, physique is no indicator of on-field success.
Indeed, the world game has enjoyed a long romance with pocket-sized magicians - Maradona, Puskas and Messi spring to mind. Not in the same stratosphere, but making their small presence felt in a big way at home, are the likes of Patricio Perez and Brisbane's inspirational captain, Matt McKay. No one is surprised when an AFL or league player has a little bit on the side, but only in football do you expect to see it tearing up the left flank.
In contrast to the footy codes, football places far greater emphasis on skill and cognitive prowess. It is both universally loved and universally accessible. The whisper thin build of legendary Austrian footballer, Matthias Sindelar, was no barrier to glory and earned him the nickname, "Paper Man". Try getting Tina Turner or some working class lads from New Jersey to belt that one out.
And what of that bicycle kick by Wayne Rooney? Breathtaking, yes. But off-field Manchester's finest could be any Scouse lad running a numbers racket out of the local chip shop. That's not to say his prodigious talent is easy to come by, just that in football you really can't judge a book by its cover.
Of course football has its enforcers, leg-breakers even. They're loathed and loved in equal measure. When coach Darren Burgess - a defector from AFL to football - went so far to suggest the Socceroos were tougher and more agile than Aussie Rules players the forums went into meltdown. Take away its might and speed mystique and what is AFL? Just another bitch slap at a David Jones shoe sale.
Burgess's view is in the minority, of course. Last year ABC's Gruen Transfer - a program that pits advertising agencies against each other to "sell the unsellable" - came up with this gem: convince Australians to abandon all other footy codes to help the nation win the "Soccer World Cup" (not to be confused with the AFL World Cup). Predictably, both agencies opted for an injection of grunt and muscle.
A similar thought was bouncing around in 1964 when VFL's elite challenged Slavia-Port Melbourne to a game of round ball rules. The aim of the event was to raise money for charity but if the footy boys could embarrass the "big girls" at their own game, well all the better. As history shows the VFL blokes were duly spanked 8-0 and one of football's most vociferous critics, Ron Barassi, hobbled off the field injured.
Ironically the call for greater physicality has always been a dead-end street for football. It's why the FFA's new development curriculum is a move away from pure athletes in favour of genuine ball players. The message for kids dreaming of emulating their Socceroos heroes couldn't be simpler: it's not the size of the boots you have to fill, but what you do with them once they're on.
