‘Diabolical stuff’: Ugly reality exposed in Socceroos snooze-fest

“Miss, why hasn’t anyone scored yet?”

“Why does it look like the red and white team aren’t really trying?”

And of course the question every parent with a young child gets every time there’s sport on the TV.

“Who is winning?”

Let’s have a go at answering that last one after Australia secured passage to the knockout phase of the World Cup with a hard-to-watch 0-0 draw against Paraguay.

The Socceroos? They’re certainly winners. Reaching the final 32 was the pass mark for this tournament. Remember, it’s the same as what the five previous iterations of the national team by qualifying for what used to be 32-team World Cups.

But with the youngest team in the competition and huge promise of more to come in four years time, getting out of the group stage is a bonus for Tony Popovic and his team.

Especially given how much of a chance most overseas pundits gave us.

Paraguay? They’re through too, but any nation happy with scraping in with that kind of ambitionless effort should have a rethink about how they go about it.

And the game itself? An undoubted loser - especially in Australia where an opportunity to win the hearts of another generation went begging.

Maybe it was fitting that an early lesson in the pragmatism that often plagues the world game was delivered while many youngsters were watching in the classroom.

If you’re going to sign up to this sport as a lifetime fan, expect plenty of days where not much happens.

That doesn’t mean the game isn’t worth committing to. We’re only two games removed from one of the most scintillating evenings Australian sport has experienced in years when Nestory Irankunda led us to a 2-0 win against Turkey.

The big problem with today was football largely did it to itself.

You wouldn’t have known from the huge build-up, but there was every reason to expect the kind of contest we ended up getting.

A highly-controversial, increasingly-criticised decision by FIFA to change its group stage format so teams that finish on the same points are separated by their head-to-head record is rocking the tournament.

It’s delivering too many games where both teams have no real incentive to win - and we saw the flaws in full force in San Francisco.

There was an almost complete lack of intent from Paraguay in the opening 45 minutes. They had just one shot and were more than happy to sit back and attempt to keep the clean-sheet that will secure passage to the knockout phase.

Australia at least had a crack, but still played at a tempo that left fans in some kind of content coma.

When the loudest cheer in the stadium is for a fan drinking beer from their shoe, you know you’ve got a problem.

The second half was certainly an improvement but most of the 20 shots at goal the teams ended up combining for were speculative.

“That was definitely a game that happened,” one reporter in the press room said after the full-time siren blew.

Football might want it back.

“You can have opinions about the way the game was played - or what we both thought we needed,” Socceroos coach Tony Popovic said.

“But we at no stage felt we were playing for a draw. We controlled the game quite well ... and had the better opportunities.”

“We tried to win the game,” Popovic added.

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