To win hearts, the away game needs to woo the home crowd

Ihave uttered all the "soccer mum" cliches: "Winning isn't everything", "It's only a game", "There's always next time". But my philosophy is being tested this week as the Socceroos head into the first World Cup qualifying match against Uruguay.

My head is full of unsporting sentiments: it's do-or-die, life-or-death, now-or-never. It's winner-take-all. For the sake of my two soccer-mad sons, and tens of thousands of their peers, I badly want the Socceroos to triumph.

My sons know more about the European clubs, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, than they know about the Socceroos. They could tell you who takes the corners for Arsenal. And who captains Barcelona. But they couldn't name a player from Perth Glory or Northern Spirit.

I should applaud their cosmopolitan outlook, the lack of chauvinism. Before globalisation was fashionable, soccer was a global game: the whole world watched it and the whole world played it. It was the true Esperanto, spoken from Lagos to Laos. And in the 21st century, it is fitting, perhaps, that my sons' soccer interests should transcend national boundaries.

Their loyalty shifts round the globe, like labour or capital, to land lightly where the spoils are richest. They follow the world's best, the moneyed stars, the celebrity teams.

But I feel sorry for them. Theirs is a cool kind of passion. It's an affair of the head not the heart. I remember the intensity of life as a fan. My family followed the mighty Demons in Perth before Aussie rules went national. We rugged up and yelled till our throats were raw, united as a family every Saturday in our passionate devotion.

These football games provided some of the emotional peaks - and troughs - of my childhood, as well as some of the best days out, and the sharpest memories.

Following Manchester United's fortunes, as my sons do, from the other side of the world, is no match for the thrill of a tempestuous relationship with a local team; and knowing the worth of Zinedine Zidane's contract with Real Madrid is no substitute for following the exploits of a local hero.

My nine-year-old could name every player in the French team that played the "friendly" last week. But beyond Australia's two stars, Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka, the Socceroos were strangers to him. The 12-year-old could tell you the share price for Manchester United (yes, it's a publicly listed company), and rank the teams in the Italian and Spanish competitions. But he doesn't know the name of our local team in the National Soccer League.

It's a pity. Cool about rugby league, detached from the Swans, these boys have no team to call their own. This would not matter if they were not sport-mad. It seems wrong they should grow up obsessed by soccer, reading about it, playing it, but never to feel the chains of affection that bind fan to club, or to ride the roller-coaster from elation to bitter disappointment that is a fan's heightened existence. So I want the Socceroos to make it to the World Cup. Children like winners. And if Australian soccer is ever to win their hearts, it first must win their respect. It must get street cred.

If the Socceroos succeed, it would not transform my sons overnight. But it would help to draw the money that draws the players and the coaches. It would lift the status of Australian soccer in their eyes.

I also want the Socceroos to win because

soccer is simply a superior football code (I speak as a convert), and I want to see it grow in

popularity in Australia. As a small person, I like a sport in which skilful, small men can destroy big men; and as a woman I like soccer's aesthetics, its poise and its grace. It's not often you see a

thick-thighed, thick-necked player, or anyone who bears a passing resemblance to Shane Warne, on a soccer ground.

Yes, soccer is a grand game, for the thrill of its rare goals, and for the way the best team doesn't always win; for its pace and its relative safety. Even mothers averse to contact sports feel confident soccer will leave their children's spines and heads in tact.

The time is ripe for Australian soccer. The suburbs are bulging with young soccer players. Even the GPS schools, those bastions of rugby union, have caved in to pressure of demand. On their hallowed sports grounds, young soccer players are starting to outnumber the rugby union lads.

I want the Socceroos to win. But not at any price. If soccer is to keep faith with the "soccer mums", it has to keep clean. So please, Socceroos, none of the dirty tactics we saw in the "friendly" against France.

Good luck. There are thousands of soccer-mad kids out here just waiting to be turned into fans.