Saturday's Australia Cup final was meant to be a celebration of everything that makes Australian football unique: its cultural diversity, its storied community clubs, its passionate fan groups, its reflection of the nation's vibrant and intertwined migrant history.
Framed in the lead-up as a meeting between the worlds of 'old soccer' and 'new football', the game pitted Sydney United 58 – a former National Soccer League powerhouse that was founded by Croatian immigrants in 1958 and became known for developing some of Australia's best male players like Graham Arnold, Robbie Slater, Tony Popovic, Mile Jedinak and Zeljko Kalac – against Macarthur FC, a club founded two years ago as an A-Leagues expansion franchise and which is still laying down its cultural and historical roots.
The competitive context of the game was also noteworthy. Inspired by the English FA Cup, this year's Australia Cup saw more than 700 clubs from every state and territory play a series of knock-out games against one another before the A-League Men clubs were introduced in the final stages.
