THE scars are still visible on my knees.
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It was only in the moments following did I regret sliding knees first, arms raised, across the carpet of the lounge room in a moment of pure triumph and joy. Carpet burn to the bone.
The wife, woken from her peaceful slumber, was less than happy to find her husband bleeding but crying in happiness on the lounge room floor. The reason?
The Socceroos were going to the World Cup.
The moment John Aloisi slotted home a penalty in front of 80,000 fans at Homebush in 2005 reverberated around the nation.
It’s arguably the greatest moment in Australian football history if not one of the finest in Australian sporting history. Australia had won its way back into the World Cup.
“We thought it was going to happen, we've been dreaming it for 32 years," Aloisi famously said after scoring the penalty which broke Australia’s drought.
For a generation of Australians, this was our “moon landing” moment. The older generation shares tales of what they were doing when Neil Armstrong and “Buzz” Aldrin walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.
Our generation of Australians asks where were you when Aloisi slotted home the penalty and went running shirtless around the stadium with his elated team-mates giving chase.
My usual response? Bleeding, laying crying on the lounge room floor. Just thinking about the moment now still raises the hairs on my arm.
Little did John Aloisi know what he reignited in this country by scoring that penalty that night. We are back on the world game’s centrestage.
As the nation comes to a standstill to watch the Socceroos against France on Saturday night, some of us will do so with a tear in our eye and scars on our knees.
