After 32 years on the sidelines it's back to the future for the Socceroos in Germany


IT MAY all have happened more than 30 years ago, but 1974 Socceroos coach Rale Rasic still recalls with amusement the rude welcome his squad received when they flew into Hamburg at the start of their trailblazing World Cup campaign.

"The howls of protest were deafening," he says. "I just laughed."

The British media, miffed at the failure of England to qualify for the finals, were even more scathing, writing off the Australians as mugs. Tourists. Curiosities. Worse, gate-crashers. Even the locally based Bild-Zeitung, Germany's biggest newspaper, demanded to know, "Why have we got these kangaroos at the World Cup? How have we ended up with this bunch of no-hopers at the world's greatest tournament?"


No hope? Well, not exactly. The Socceroos officially started the 16-team tournament as 250-1 outsiders to win, further out than even Zaire and Haiti.

Predictably for a team of part-timers - goalkeeper Jim Fraser was forced to pull out because of business commitments - there was a certain wide-eyed innocence about the 1974 Socceroos.

"It was like getting to live in the penthouse for a couple of weeks after spending our whole life in the basement," former captain Johnny Warren, who was to play only one game in Germany, later wrote.

There was the stifling security, cranked to unprecedented levels after the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics only two years earlier. There was the opulence of the Ochsenzoll training camp, with its 18 playing fields.

There was the table-tennis, which helped keep the remarkably sober squad amused. The big Mercedes team bus. The free kit lavished on the squad by makers adidas. "I was like a kid in a lolly shop," Rasic recalls in his recent biography, written with local journalist Ray Gatt.

So, were the Socceroos overawed by the occasion, seen by Rasic as "the culmination of four years of hard work, pain, torture, family and work sacrifices, controversy, drama and blood sweat and tears"?

Not at all, says Ray Baartz, perhaps the star player of his generation, who accompanied the squad in Germany after being ruled out by an injury sustained in an infamous warm-up match against Uruguay in Sydney.

"Just like today's team, I think we all realised that once you get to the World Cup finals every game is difficult. But no, we weren't overawed in any shape or form. We thought we could get into the next round."

This confidence had not been dented by a draw which, then as now, pitted the Socceroos against one of the pre-tournament favourites, West Germany, and two other strong teams, East Germany and Chile.

"One Germany would have been bad enough," Australian Soccer Federation president Arthur George observed at the time. "But two? I just can't believe it."

Then again, as Baartz, who now runs a sports store in Newcastle, explains, the Australians had done it tough preparing for and winning through the World Cup qualifiers.

They had survived a riot in Vietnam, come back against all the odds in South Korea, and kept their heads in Iran where, according to Warren, the 130,000 Tehran crowd generated "intensity, intimidation 50 times greater than we were used to".

Only 17,000 watched Australia's historic opening match on June 14, against East Germany at Hamburg's Volksparkstadion. Predictably, the predominantly West German crowd cheered the Socceroos and, especially, its "Iron Man" defender Manfred Schaefer.

Born in the East Prussian city of Konigsberg, Schaefer had fled as a three-year-old with his family from the advancing Russians, living in Bremen before moving to Australia as a 14-year-old. He returned to Germany in 1974 as a national hero.

He is somewhat surprised to find he still is to Germans of his own generation. "Only last week I had a German TV crew fly to Sydney to spend the day with me," he said.

In 1974 he was given the task of marking East Germany's star striker Joachim Streich in what Rasic determined should be a defensive battle. For more than 50 minutes the tactics seemed to work, Schaefer explains.

"Streich turned to me and said, 'This is unbelievable. We're not creating anything. We can't afford to lose this'."

Then, in the 57th minute, defender Col Curran deflected the ball into his own net. Ten minutes later Streich eluded Schaefer to score, and it was 2-0.

"Beaten but not disgraced," concluded the Herald, praising the team's fighting spirit, and its gallantry in defeat, which had "won the hearts of the crowd".

A satisfied Rasic later recalled seeing a headline: "Dwarves grow ten feet tall!"

Despite their enhanced reputation, few observers gave the Australians a chance against West Germany. The host team was packed with stars such as Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier and Gerd Müller, and fired up, as Warren pointed out, "after being crucified by the media for their dull 1-0 win over Chile".

Once again the Socceroos performed with credit but without success. This time Schaefer was given the task of marking Müller out of the game. He told Rasic: "If I can keep him scoreless it will be the greatest achievement in my career."

Sadly, with virtually his only chance of the game, Müller scored with a back-header, completing a convincing, though by no means overwhelming, win for West Germany.

As the Socceroos flew south to Berlin for the final game against Chile, Rasic set Australia three World Cup finals tasks: win their first point, score their first goal, win the FIFA Fair Play trophy. "We must stop winning friends and start winning points."

The game, played in torrential rain so bad that Rasic claims he had to drag the Iranian referee on to the pitch for the second half, ended in chaos and confusion.

Fullback Curran was carried off after a vicious tackle. Teammate Ray Richards, who had been booked in the first half, was sent off - perhaps a victim of mistaken identity. The pitch was invaded by demonstrators protesting against Chile's right-wing regime.

With hopes of a win or of a Fair Play trophy gone, Australia grimly held on to claim their first and only point.

Rasic pronounced himself satisfied with the 0-0 draw, though he was to learn almost immediately that he would not be retained as coach.

Though that campaign now seems worlds - as well as World Cups - away, many of its features seem uncannily familiar.

Terrorism was a major threat. Drug testing had just been introduced. Television was bringing the game to millions worldwide (Socceroos games were shown live on ABC). Greedy players were being criticised for demanding outrageous salaries.

And, of course, back home in Australia there was heady talk of this being the breakthrough, the new dawn for soccer, the moment the world game took its place alongside, if not above, the other football codes.

It has taken a long time, but 32 years later, the Socceroos - and Australian soccer - return to Germany to make those dreams come true. Sadly, it seems only one of the 1974 squad, Manfred Schaefer, will be there to see it happen.

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