Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"There is a Homeric, epic quality about this tournament.  Mighty teams like the Spanish and the French choke at psychological moments and unheralded teams like the Koreans and Swiss take the opportunity for a moment in the sunshine perhaps anticipated for a generation"- Paul Walter

There's a much deeper argument that war cannot end, to do with human nature. It says that we are warlike by nature, and can draw strong arguments from evolutionary psychology. Our ability and constitutional inclination to divide the human world into an 'us' and a 'them', and indeed to feel warlike toward the 'them', seems to be a part of our nature which we can thank for the survival of our family trees for the past million and more years. We can't throw it just by a bit of state indoctrination or mass participation in flower workshops. It's a strong argument.

I've found before that when you go out alone to watch a football game you kind of spontaneously meet people who are also interested. It's a contrast to going out alone to listen to music or trying to get laid, when I inevitably just get lonelier as the night goes on.

Probably two significant moments in my career that I hadn’t really thought about until around, funnily enough, the semi-final in the World Cup in 2003 after the well-documented walking incident in that match. That was the catalyst for me to start thinking and thinking why have I got this approach. (Adam Gilchrist on "walking")

When Australia Post made the controversial decision to remove Brett Stewart’s face from the 2008 NRL Grand Final Collector’s stamps, it sent out a strong message to the public. Guilty. But Stewart has not yet been found guilty. So why should he be punished by being left off the stamps?

And yet for perhaps the first time I can remember I found myself agreeing with Marie-George Buffet, the leader of the French Communist Party who said: "So we stop the match, then what? Is it going to solve the problem of these men and women who in a way are expressing that they don't feel right in our country?"

If the code is serious about bringing a female audience to the game, it will need to ask itself whether it’s a few bad apples in the bunch, or if it’s the sport’s culture that needs to be turfed.

We watch the Games day and night, share athletes’ pain and pride. We want to know how good our county’s sport is. We hold high expectation for our Olympians. We do care about how much gold medals our athletes can win. But the Olympic Games are a global party. They are truly about participation and enjoying sports.

Some of the Socceroos supporters think Australia will have a comfortable journey to the World Cup finals. However in my opinion there still have some tough games on the way. When the qualifying games get underway again, any small mistakes would put the Socceroos’ ticket to the World Cup finals at risk.

What an amazing victory for Australian media. Connecting Australia to the heartwarming stories which demonstrate the strength of the human spirit to rise above physical and mental challenges shows our dedication to all of our athletes, limitations or not.

In little more than a month we’ll know whether the next name on the list and the next legend of the Tour is a gifted young athlete from Australia’s Top End. And the many Australians who will follow the race here in France and on SBS this year will be shouting: Allez Cadel!

How we came to confront one another is uncertain.  Amid a multitude of conflicts we found ourselves face to face, testing over and over, sometimes mirroring each other’s methods, sometimes striking unexpectedly into what had been considered safe ground in an attempt to create a “domino effect” from within.  We appear to have a similar level of  tactical dexterity, and we both know that in the end there will not be a winner but a loser, waning determination creating inadvertent forfeits, loss of confidence resulting in dimished thinking capacities. 

Football is, apparently, un-Australian. It leads inevitably to violence among the spectators (partly, we are told, because it’s mind-numbingly boring and so many games finish scoreless). It will never threaten the predominant winter code of the region in question, be it Aussie Rules or Rugby League.

Not much has been written, in fact nothing at all, about the geopolitical significance of that controversial New Year cricket match at the SCG. Yes, geopolitical. It was about the emergence of India as the next economic super power and manifesting itself as a cricket super power as well. This is the elephant in the room that everyone is still not seeing.

The Matildas are not just good. They are clearly special. As players and personalities, and as a team, they have that bit of magic which compels one to believe in them. They are the most brilliant role-models for our young girls, and perfect icons for Australian patriotism and pride.