Adelaide United trailblazers

Tonight in Adelaide, new football, takes another step. Appropriately, to me, it is a team from the old NSL playing in a stadium used in the old NSL, that will take us to a place this game, in this country, has never ever been.

Semi-Final time. Of the Asian Champions League.

Whatever your sporting passion, when there is a prize on the line, the crowd swells, and the intensity lifts.

See Hawthorn in the AFL, even Manly in the NRL. Big crowds, big emotions.

Tonight Adelaide United will walk out to a full house against Zico coached Bunyodkor.

And look at the Aussies getting great experience.

Scott Jamieson, wallowing in Bolton reserves until recently. Lucas Pantelis, Travis Dodd lighting up Asia. Robbie Cornthwaite adding to his experiences. Eugene Galekovic dumped from Melbourne Victory now a Socceroo squad member. Paul Reid returned from years with Brighton nobody in lower league England, even Paul Agostino much maligned on this blog but finishing his career in his home town on a boy's own adventure.

While the A-League continues to provide a football pathway for many wannabee Socceroos and the National Youth League improves the player base further it is the Asian pathway, the Asian Champions League and World Cup Qualifier routes that has provided football in Australia with great opportunities.

It is Asia that will provide further revenue opportunities and secure the new game, the new clubs. slowly we're seeing the benefits, even if they aren't all financial yet.

Mid-week. A club game in Australia is sold-out. It can't happen in Rugby League, Union, or AFL. The players can't take club midweek games.

So football sneaks another advantage.

And international competition doesn't count, not in Asia, so the likes of the grumpy old men, Roy Masters and Peter FitzSimons would tell you?

Pull the other one. This is about building bridges with a part of the world many Australians have never been to, in some cases, never heard of. This is bigger than football.

And the Federal Government knows it.

Why else would they pour money into football, ripping it away from League and Union when all the AFL cronies are trying to tell them we don't deserve it. The Government both Howard and Rudd saw the future and went against the old Australia policy.

Anything but Football.

Football can do more for Australia than any other sport. In the years to come as our young men and women travel across Asia, networks and friendships will form. They already are.

Joeys in Uzbekistan this week, Young Socceroos in Thailand, Young Matildas and Matildas head to Vietnam and Thailand in the coming days. Coaches, players, administrators and fans all adding to the depth of experience

And of course Adelaide take on Bunyodkor in a humdinger tonight. Go Adelaide, I'd loved to see league's most entertaining side over the first three years in the Final.

Bit of work to be done yet....

You'd be mad to miss it.