I have never been a soccer fan. After growing up on a diet of high-scoring Australian Rules football, soccer has always seemed rather dull. The prospect of watching a 90-minute game finish as a 0-0 draw seems mind-numbingly boring. Soccer also seems like a soft game – there isn’t much physical contact and when there is, players often dive onto the ground and writhe in pain. Despite these two aspects still being major drawbacks, I have started to treat soccer more seriously as a spectator sport. For one, soccer is much more entertaining when you have a team to barrack for. Australia’s participation in the World Cup last year certainly raised interest. Soccer also has the advantage of being a global game and one of the only places where Australia and China cross swords in the sports arena.
In fact, sport is very similar to language because it’s a way for countries to communicate with each other. Like English, soccer has become the world’s lingua franca. Australia’s current national sport is cricket, but it’s a language that is incompatible with most of the world. Cricket is a dying relic of the British Empire and should be replaced as Australia’s national sport by soccer. Rugby Union is a popular sport, but its worldwide appeal is limited and only New South Wales and Queensland are fluent consumers of the sport. Soccer is the only real alternative to ensure Australia’s national sport can communicate with influential regions such as China, the US and the rest of Asia.
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