Behind the Scenes: Writing Angeball – Vince Rugari

This transcript has been transcribed by Riverside.fm, no edits (please excuse any errors)

Sean (00:01.452) Very happy to welcome Vince Rugari. He's the author of the new book, AngeBall, available now in all good bookstores and even some bad bookstores.Vince, welcome to the podcast.

Vince (00:11.776) Hey mate, how are you? Thank you for having me.

Sean (00:14.048) Not a problem, not a problem. I will get stuck into the book. I've just finished wrapping up on it. Really loved it. But before I always open up my podcast, asking people where they got their start in sports. What about yourself?

Vince (00:27.777) I mean, I always wanted to end up in sport growing up, because, well, I was no good at it, obviously, like most of us who end up on this side of the fence, but, trying to figure out a way, for me to, you know, be involved and initially, you know, I studied, communication and, sports management at university.

So back then I was thinking more along the lines of, I, you know, be involved in helping run a sport? or, you know, be on the more PR or comm side of sport. Cause I never liked the idea of being a journo who held microphones under the noses of athletes who didn't want to speak. But that's kind of what I ended up doing anyway, because just the way a few things landed opportunity wise for me during and after uni. And I guess a little bit more of natural skill set. I'm probably more inclined to be a journo and like tell stories and find things out. So.

Sean (00:59.16) Okay.

Vince (01:23.515) the first thing I did really in sports proper was like a, internship with, with Gold Coast United, which was a roller coaster in and of itself while I was studying at Bonn University on the Gold Coast. that club started up. so I worked, within their sort of PR department, working closely with the team and the youth team and covering their games. And it was my mentor through that who sort of suggested to me as well. was like, I think you might be a journo, mate.

Vince (01:53.465) your instincts might be more inclined to that. So I accidentally stumbled down that path and a few moves around the country later I'm pretty lucky and pretty happy to be writing about football for the Sydney Morning Herald which has a really strong football heritage in my opinion with the great Mike Cockrell having written for our paper for so many years. Best paper in Australia in my opinion, best sports section in Australia in my opinion and yeah, I'm loving being a part of what we do.

Sean (02:24.362) It's interesting because a lot of people, I have given that question, there is people that come from, wanted to be a sports journal and they even made the study that in some form and then they end up on the other side. And that was actually one of my questions. Like, have you ever looked on that other side a lot? know, and some have been pulled across the other side. It was interesting to say you started your, like you said, you're now a journal through and through. Have you had some of those sliding door moments to say, Vince, come club side or league side and sort of run the meteor ops from that side of the fence.

Vince (02:56.201) Not really, no, not to say that it won't happen at some point, maybe it will. But I don't know, I just didn't think back in those moments when you're trying to decide which path you're gonna go down, I didn't think I was equipped for this sort of stuff, but it turns out maybe I am, maybe I was wrong about myself. I'd like to write it out a little bit longer in journalism, get to at least another World Cup or two, but I certainly, bigger picture thinking would be open to really anything down the line, but this works for me right now.

Sean (03:31.48) So in your 15 years in the world of journalism, it has changed a lot from real print focus to digital. How have you seen the role of being a sports journalist change?

Vince (03:46.073) massively and kind of in a shorter amount of time than that too. Like I've felt a lot of changes within the last maybe six years, the days of sort of going to a press conference and writing up something from it. And if another player does his hamstring, do another article on that. The game's changed a little bit in the sense that it's more about, or at least in organizations like the Sydney Morning Herald, it's more about a subscriber focused.

Strategy, which means a lot more sort of like bespoke content that people will pay for, which is not necessarily the the grist for the mill kind of sports coverage that a lot of people are used to. And I certainly started out with particularly when I spent four years at AAP. And that's pretty much what it is, is just news, news, news, grind, grind, grind. It's definitely changed. Sport has changed too, which is sort of influenced the media and the way we cover sport too, just because football is a great example.

The media market shrunk and just the way we cover football as a result of that, I think has changed. I used to turn up at press conferences, no, matches, sorry, when I was starting out, go to the press box and there'd be at least a Ray Gatt, Dave Davudovic, Tom Smithies. Every News Corp masthead used to have a football writer and…

None of them really do anymore. And it's kind of a lonely existence, but you can't stop this thing that's happening to worldwide industries, really not just sport and media, but everything's going through significant change.

Sean (05:26.776) Yeah, I mean, like when I started Sports Geek, you know, 15 years ago, media departments in Clubland weren't, you know, doing the reporting they're doing now. So that competition in the space is different. And then, you know, as digital has evolved, like, you know, the game report, because so much things alive and so much, know, sports are more accessible. It's less likely that people are going to read a full match report that, you know, we would have grown up on 20, 25 years ago.

So has that sort of been the change that you're sort of trying to poke at those stories?Going contrary to thinking, like looking for that longer form piece that subscribers want, like diving in a little bit deeper that has made that change for you.

Vince (06:05.957) A bit, yeah, a little bit of it has been sort of steered by, I think, change at our papers. But I think it's also helped sharpen my sense of what can I do that you can't get anywhere else sort of thing? Like what's the best way for me to spend my time? Is it to chase something that will appear everywhere else at the same time?

Or can I use my expertise or contacts or, you know, creativity in terms of thinking up ideas or concepts for stories that will work better than that. It's a bit of that, but also just what you just said reminded me of another major thing that's happened and maybe replaced some of the stuff that's died off in media and sport and consumption as well as just like 15 years ago or 12 or whatever it was when I started out. Podcasts were not a thing, really.

They used to be quite fiddly to get on your phone. But now like the podcast, specifically sport as well in the way people follow sport, I think replaces a lot of the day to day news coverage, particularly even like some of the talkback radio kind of stuff that you know, when I was growing up, and my parents would pick me up from school in Adelaide, at least when my dad was driving the radio would always be on five double A KGN cornsies sports show.

And that almost felt like where Adelaide came together to discuss sports. And that's still going, of course, that sort of thing. But there's so many other different strands now. And I podcast is a really interesting one because certainly now for me, when I finished watching a match that I'm emotionally invested in, I want to read as much as I can. But the next day I want to listen to as much as I can. So even if it's two, three, four different podcasts, groups or teams.

Talking about the same event match, breaking it down in slightly different ways. I love that stuff as well. But that's changed. that sort of stuff is almost like a competitor in some ways to what we do. But just looking back at it all though, who would have thought all of these things would be in play some years ago.

Sean (08:20.824) And is that as we have the term now that didn't exist 10 years ago, content creator, is there the, as a journalist, do you have to now have these multiple strings to your bow to be able to talk on a podcast about the story you've done, do a short report on video, is that sort of something that a journalist needs in a skill set to be able to create content for different platforms?

Vince (08:49.673) Yeah, definitely. And that's something I'm still sort of learning with. certainly during the last two World Cups, the last few years have been amazing for me because I've covered the Socceroos in Qatar, Matildas, obviously in Australia, both the best ever campaigns for Australia at men's and women's World Cups. And the demand from our guys at the Herald was, you know, after a particular game, go outside the stadium and just shoot a one minute video and talk about what you saw, is none of that comes particularly naturally to me because I'm not trained in it.

And, know, I do my best communication via words, I would think in terms of the written word rather than just getting on a camera riff and riffing. But you got to learn because that's what they want. And more and more now, we've got social media reporters in the newsroom who if you've got a story that's interesting, you can follow your story and that's okay. But then, you know, they're going to come and look for you because they want to shoot something for TikTok. And then

I think journalists as well routinely get, particularly in sport, radio requests. So every now and then you're on the radio with a different group as well. So it's so different to the journalism that when I started out, even then, which wasn't all that long ago, it's so different to what it was back then to now.

Sean (10:05.196) Because a lot of sports media now is both following the league or the sport of choice, but then you're also following the personalities around it. And now, you know, journalists are becoming part of that. You know, talked about social media. think journalists are the ones that are most either addicted to or high usage of Twitter, you know, now X. How are you? I mean, you would have been an active user for many years.

Sean (10:30.424) I've discussed with a bunch of guests how it sort of dropped off or it's a little bit different now under Elon Musk's tenure. Has X changed a little bit for you over the last couple of years?

Vince (10:42.271) Yeah, it's definitely gotten more intense and the Australian soccer community is intense as it is, but it's almost like the floodgates have opened a lot more. Sometimes it's not a pleasant place to be, but also, you know, I think I have to credit a lot of my career to my Twitter usage, funnily enough, just because it sort of helped me build a bit of a profile and give me bit of a voice, particularly in football.

Totally unintentional. just… get on there and probably too often say what I think rather than think about it a little bit more before I say it. But I also think that maybe that's what's appealed to so many people as well is that when it comes to, you know, me and the things that I think about in Australian football, I'm going to say what I think, you know, it's all hopefully it comes across as authentic because that's what it is. But I think that's a little bit more of the flavor that people like, particularly from journalists as well. Journalists aren't popular.

Sean (11:15.458) Yeah.

Vince (11:39.595) People generally speaking, like, we're always down the bottom of the most trusted lists that end up in newspapers every year. Like, you know, it's like a journalist then lawyer or something like that, or insurance salesman. We're right down the bottom of the barrel, but I try to just be a normal person, open, honest, engaged, say what I think. So that's certainly benefited me, but the flip side of that is once you get to a certain, once your audience grows to a certain size.

Vince (12:09.813) The small percentage of people who want to be abusive or even just like debate in bad faith, that goes up. So you got to manage that personally and sometimes it's a challenge, but I think I do okay.

Sean (12:23.48) So you're not quite at the level of the NBA and the NFL insiders that are spending 23 hours on their phone to… Because there is a, I guess, a trench of journalists and news breakers and insiders that are using Twitter as a, here's the breaking news, which sort of goes against, know, if you're sending it back to your publisher to say, hey, go read my article, if it's breaking for free on X, is that something you're trying to manage? And, you know, if you've got a story coming up that you're trying to tease, but you still want to drive people back to read the full piece.

Vince (12:56.373) Yeah, it's that's challenging actually, because you're right, like my job is to bring readers to the Sydney Morning Herald. And they're not necessarily going to access Twitter or, you know, if I'm sending eyeballs to a piece of breaking information that doesn't contain a link to the Sydney Morning Herald website, at least, I'll probably get in trouble for that. Like, it's just not, it's just not on in terms of what the bosses actually want. So it is sometimes annoying when people do receive the same information as you.

But then they just tweet it out because that's their model or whatever. And that's fine. That's, you know, play on. But for me, I've got to wait until I've got, particularly for the more sensitive things, all the facts together, written, subbed, legally vetted. And it's also sometimes got to be timed correctly as well when we release it to make sure that it sees the most amount of eyeballs as well. So I wish sometimes I could just say what I know when I know it, but

Vince (13:56.053) Yeah, we do things differently, I guess.

Sean (13:59.56) Definitely. I will touch on a bit. The only other thing I want to talk about, Giles, before we get onto the book is like just the rapid change. It's in the space now. Artificial intelligence is on the rise and it is one of the reasons that we're getting either more content, whether it's good or bad. Do you have an opinion on like what AI will do or could do or how it could impact you?

Vince (14:24.289) I sense it's a little bit like the discussion that's going on around the moment with the Australian government and wanting to limit social media for kids. It's a bit like the genies out of the bottle, I think. And you're not going to get it back in. So it's a case of what do you do about it? And for me, think there's a lot of benefits to AI usage in journalism, as long as you can leverage it to enhance the things that only humans can do versus using it to replace humans.

A lot of menial data stuff, things, little things like that can be organized in an instant with AI that would be take you half a day potentially if you did it manually. I think AI can certainly help spark ideas in the creative process, but it can't give you ideas. Those are going to come from within, but maybe they can give you different prompts that you put inside your brain to then come up with things.

I think there's potentially even, you know, the, the, the daily sort of sport news coverage. I could easily see within a few years that some of that starts to be AI generated. It doesn't mean you can just let an AI, let AI, let it run loose on a sport and just run what it says. But you, you read through it and you vet it because what that can do then, particularly if you're taking, say a press release and trying to turn that into a story.

If AI can give you a draft of that within 20 seconds, and that's good because that saves me 30 minutes to an hour, which I can instead spend on the phone with people who were involved in the making of that decision. And then I can go back into that story and add insight and analysis and color that an AI or a computer can never provide. So in that way, I think it can actually be really helpful. And then the other thing is I would be completely lost without Otter.

In terms of transcribing interviews, I cannot wait for the day that that stuff gets to the point where I don't have to go through the transcript to fix up all the little errors that it picks up with accents and that sort of thing. Because there's a great example of how technology has saved me literally hours upon hours. I mean, there's no way I could have written this book that we're about to talk about if I didn't have an auto premium service where I could just put in all these hours of interviews and get

Vince (16:49.727) rough transcripts back because that would take me almost as long as it took me to write the book to go through, type it out and that sort of thing. So I'm optimistic and keen in terms of AI and journalism and how it can be used. Maybe though I do worry about some of the people who run some of the big companies and if they think of it in terms of dollar signs rather than using it as a tool to enhance what your people do.

Sean (17:16.76) Yeah, most definitely. I don't use case you just said then I had a 30 minute video. There was a full training video that I I'd watched three years ago, but I just wanted to recap all the key notes. And I just literally said, give me the transcript. And then I said, can you please redo this transcript into a nice one pager that tells me all the key things and one, it was a great way to refresh. And it's that that piece of as a tool for the right people, you can get more done or get more depth.

That's where the I guess the big benefit is. Yeah, I agree with you If people are just saying he's a cost -saving mechanism and we can replace, you know inches of Columns, it's yeah, that's not gonna that's not gonna do the job But if you've got a large data set and you say hey, I want to know what was the most important Part of the game or whatever and it can come back and give you those insights and you can dive in like that's the bit

It would be advantageous. And yeah, it was going to be one of my questions about the book. So we'll get onto the book. The book is Angeball, published by Hatchet, available on all platforms. I've actually been listening to the last of it on Audible. How did you find the process?

Vince (18:29.793) Yeah, really challenging to be honest, but in a good way. I only had four months effectively to write the first manuscript from the day after the Women's World Cup final last year, which was August 21. The opportunity had been lined up before then, but I didn't have capacity to start thinking about it, especially with the Matildas doing what they did for that tournament. I needed to focus fully on that, but then literally the next day…

I started thinking and that was so the end of August to I submitted the first manuscript on my birthday, which is January 12. So four and a bit months. I took it all on leave. I'd leave logged, which I was able to take. I've got a fairly one track mind. I'm 100 % on whatever the thing is that I'm doing. So I needed to make sure I had nothing on my plate to tackle this, particularly in that timeframe. And it was every day, most nights doing something, whether it's getting interviews in the can or sorting through it and piecing it together or a three week period

I spent in London, going to a couple of Spurs games, interviewing Ang, those sorts of things. And a lot of archival stuff like through work, we've got a facility to look back at newspaper archives going back 20, 30 years plus. So to be able to look at that sort of stuff and read about what was written when Angie was coaching South Melbourne, Brisbane raw.

The Socceroos, Melbourne victory, think definitely enhanced the book I was able to write in the end and helped me think about it in different ways. Jeez, it was hard, Yaka though. By the end of it, I was zapped.

Sean (20:12.15) Yeah, I've had a few mates that have put their hand up to write a book. And yeah, they sort of talk about it, sort of going into a cave and, guys, you're not going to see me for two or three months. I'm just going into this dark room with a little light. I'm going to keep tapping away on this keyboard, you know, chipping away just on the task itself. Was there a specific point?

Vince (20:31.865) I was here in this, yeah, I was here in this room at this desk, by the way, just writing it out. And also the main other location was on our balcony. We have a hammock, like a hammock on a stand sort of thing. And we're talking last year, September, October, November, December, holidays months. So there were some days I was in this dark room with most of these lights off, just ferreting away. Other days were spent on a hammock. So some days weren't too bad.

Sean (21:03.032) Part of the book that I like, I was lucky enough to be working with the FFA around the time that Ang was there. And so it sort of brought back some memories of when David Gallop was recruiting him and that Asian Cup run, which was a big, part of his legacy with the Socceroos. But the bit that I did like was the fact that you got access to a bunch of documentary footage that didn't happen from Richard Baylis and Steve Coon. And Rich has been on the podcast before. How much was that like?

Vince (21:35.679) Like just finding gold as you were going through your research was I'm not sure I would have been able to write the book without what those guys provided. So obviously, most people who watch football would know Richard Bayless from his presenting on Fox and Optus and Benny Coon and is one of like the the most underrated gems in Australian football, in my opinion, like anyone who knows him knows he's an absolute legend. If you've watched video stuff, most videos that have been created video content, documentary content that relates to Australian football.

He's usually involved somewhere in there. So these guys were filming a behind the scenes documentary on that qualification campaign for the World Cup with FFA's assistance. But that got spiked when Angle F's Burt Van Marwite came in and they had no interest proceeding with it. But, you know, they've been able to use parts of it over the years. Like a couple of years ago Optus did a thing called Football Belongs, which was about the

You know, the 2020 euros and just connecting European influence on Australian football through all the migrant clubs of the, 50, 60, 70s. So bits of what I used was used for that. But, you know, Benny sent me like a 20 gigabyte Dropbox link and it was the full versions of some of these speeches that people have seen snippets of before, which were like seriously incredible. And then also

The videos that and got Ben to put together to help inspire the team. But, you know, clips of great Australian sporting achievements or, you know, different things that he would, you know, touch upon to, to fire him up mentally and all that sort of stuff. was like, you know, you'd always want to be there for those moments, but this is basically the next best thing. I was almost like I was able to go back in time and, and sit there in that room with these players and listen to what I told them or, or try and imagine.

What it would be like before a game to watch this video of like, know, Ian Thorpe and Mick Dillon and, you know, Pat Rafter winning things on the global stage and then, and making the suggestion like now it's your turn sort of thing, you can go do that. That was so good, but not just the video content that done some interviews with, with Ang and some players as well, which were going to be used for the documentary. And because I had such a massive time restraint on producing the first first manuscript.

Vince (24:00.987) I was able to use little parts of the interviews that they'd done to plug some holes that I had. And looking back, I would have been scrambling to plug those holes with stuff that I'd sort of, you know, got from people myself. So they kind of made the book possible in a way. But put that aside, they also just enhanced it in a massive way with the insights I could take from everything that was in that Dropbox link.

Sean (24:28.01) Yeah, I I like, you know, I love that inner room stuff. And we're always working with, you know, sports teams or leagues to build that trust with the coach and for Benny to get that trust of Ang to both, you know, cut these videos together as part of his pregame address and pump up stuff, but then also say, yeah, yeah, I want the lapel mic. I want you to record this for me. Now, whether, like you said in the book, whether Ang is like, I'm going to use this as a bit of a resume builder, like down the down the track or but just also to build that close relationship.

It's unfortunate the asset, the film didn't get up and the doc didn't get up, but it is if you're working on that team side, if you can build a relationship, the content that you can get is so rich and it's exactly what the fans want. And it's worth the hard yards to build trust with your coaching and your high performance staff to get that stuff.

Vince (25:19.541) Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to think I was able to finish off the documentary they started in a different sort of way in the end. I imagine there would have been some crossover with bits of what I did and what they were working on. So if they couldn't do it, I was happy to take the ball and run with it.

Sean (25:35.914) So the book has been out for I think about a week or so as we're recording this. What's been the response so far to the book been so far?

Vince (25:46.625) Pretty positive mate, it's been a weird experience for me, like seeing it on shelves and knowing that people are slowly getting through it in their own time, but nah, I haven't had any negative feedback so far. A lot of people enjoying it, as I did writing it to be honest, because it's an enjoyable journey that Ansh has gone on over the years. So much of his journey is the journey of Australian football in my opinion.

And he's just such an inspiring figure and his football is so absorbing that, you know, I found in a lot of the discussions I had with people I interviewed for it, they would just go on and on because we're talking about some of the best times in these people's lives, be they're players or fellow assistant coaches and all that sort of stuff. So I'm hoping that that sort of comes through in the text a little bit, how much joy and passion and all that, that, know, not only I put into it, putting it together,

But also these people, imparted on me. And then it was my job to put the jigsaw together really. But most people seem to be enjoying it, which is good. And probably, as I hoped as well, taking a little bit of a bittersweet sort of flavor away from it at the end, because, you know, as a country, we lost Ange, we had his influence here on the game. And maybe it was inevitable that he was always going to leave and go on to bigger and better things overseas. But at the moment, it's definitely a little bit like.

Yeah, it's great that you're doing that over there, mate, but like, geez, we miss you. We miss like, you know, what would you do with this situation or what would your advice be on this team right now? it's a pretty sad sort of story really, his exit from Australian sport, but it's one that had to be told.

Sean (27:32.78) No, definitely. And I think the piece that I enjoyed about the book is like, I consider myself as like a mainstream football fan. Like I'm the one that does tune in for the Socceroos and the Matildas or keeps an eye on the A league. I'm not in the full, you know, like we talked about before soccer Twitter. And so you filled some of those gaps because you know, Andrew's story has had those mainstream spikes when everyone is following him and knows what's happening. But it's, know, the NSL days and you know, the early Brisbane raw days and those kind of things.

A lot of mainstream sports fans, you know, don't know about, because they only know those peaks around the Socceroos and now following, you know, with Tottenham.

Vince (28:12.193) Yeah, I mean, I'd like to think most people know, or at least remember the 36 match unbeaten streak he had with Brisbane Royal. Like, you know, looking at his whole journey, I was too young to remember anything from South Melbourne. I was in high school slash early university when he was the national youth coach for Australia. So I wasn't really paying attention to what the, with all due respect, Ang, what Australia's under twenties and under 17s were doing at that point. I was, you know, doing teenager things.

But I distinctly and vividly remember his Brisbane raw team. And I remember the 36 match unbeaten streak and just the way that Australian sports slowly were like week by week, like, wow, are they going to, well, they've broken this record. Now can they break this record? And when they got to the Eastern suburbs roosters record, it felt like the entire country was watching him, which is so rare for the A league. So going back there was amazing, but

You're right. There's so many little bits that probably slip between the cracks for most people who only know, as you say, the high peaks. the good thing for me is, you know, I was able to mine that stuff because there's just absolute gold everywhere on his journey, including, you know, his very first coaching job, which was, I don't think has ever really been written about before, which was the Western suburbs soccer club. you know, there's, there's probably a lot more to tell there. I'll probably scratch the surface, but like,

Vince (29:38.111) You know, who would have, nobody knows this stuff. Not even Angie included that bit in his book that he wrote some eight years ago. So yeah, there's just so many great stories to tell all along his career in life.

Sean (29:52.632) And so you sort of talked about Andrew's sort of philosophy and his want for, you know, Australian football to succeed Australian football again, you know, I've spoken to, to people in the, in the U S and we talk about the code wars we have in Australia with, you know, the AFL and the NRL and you know, in soccer and football being part of that, you know, fighting, even just fighting for the word football. it was sort of moving away from the book and looking at football in Australia, like the A league is kind of could be coming up on 20 years. Where do you currently see football in Australia?

Vince (30:27.733) Yeah, it's complicated. I mean, up until recently, the national teams have been in great shape, but the Matildas currently don't have a coach and probably in need of someone who could put them in a new direction and sort of regenerate the team. And the Socceroos are certainly at their lowest ebb since I've been covering the game seriously in terms of losing to Bahrain at home and then drawing with Indonesia.

It's two sort of unacceptable results. So that used to be the thing that at least in football we could say, well, at least the national teams are killing it, but there's some big questions and issues there for football Australia to work through. The A -League is, know, I don't think it's been too much lower as a commercial product, which is interesting to me because as someone who watches most games every week, or at least the men's competition that is.

The product's fine. The product's always been fine, to be honest. The football itself is good and getting better because Australia is producing better young players who are slowly starting to filter through in Europe at higher numbers. And importantly for the clubs in the A league who are struggling financially at the moment, looks like those clubs have figured out how to play the transfer market and turn a talented 17, 18 year old into 500 grand or a million bucks or plus, two, three.

Vince (31:53.473) I still think Australian talent is underrated globally in the transfer market. So if they can continue to do that and achieve a sustainability for the A league just through player sales, I think the A league will be okay. I think also maybe we should probably think about football a little bit differently in Australia, like not so much on the same terms as the other football codes as we always have. always try and compare football to the AFL and the NRL and can we catch up?

I don't think that's ever going to happen. So what we should probably thinking about in football is think about it more like cricket in terms of cricket is hands down, nobody could argue one of our national sports, one of our biggest passions. But no one watches the Sheffield Shield and no one watches the big bash league, certainly at least in terms of the numbers they used to some 10 years ago. And yet we don't think of ourselves as a lesser cricket nation because of those things.

There's other aspects to the sport, which we've seen and recognized as proving that that sport is important to our national character. And I don't think there's anything more Australian really than taking your kid to a game of football on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Or, know, certainly these days, going with your friends to the pub to watch the Matildas or take the Socceroos during the World Cup. Thousands of people cramming into Federation Square at an ungodly hour.

They don't, they're not doing that because they don't care. They're doing it because they care. just need to certainly, and I'm talking almost as a football person on behalf of the people in our sport who we are often debating these things on social media with, you know, maybe we should forget about the A league trying to match the big competitions here and think more holistically about our whole sport. If the A league can just be good and produce players and keep the lights on, that's fine. I think,

Hopefully incrementally it can grow over time as more young Australians, you know, grow up, get their own disposable income and make their own decisions on how they spend on sport consumption. You know, that'll hopefully take care of itself as time goes on. But until then, focus on the fundamentals and also focus on the issues as well. Coming back to what I mentioned before about the national teams.

Vince (34:17.961) I think Football Australia have got a huge challenge in front of them from a more technical standpoint to make sure that the Matildas and the Socceroos are addressing the problems that are occurring on the field. Because if that doesn't happen and firmly, pretty soon the business of Football Australia will suffer as well. So there's a fair bit there, but I just reckon football is, we are a football nation. It just depends on how you think about it. And if your measuring stick is the A -League,

Sean (34:18.093) Yeah.

Vince (34:45.825) That's probably the wrong way of looking at it, but if you look at the millions who play and millions who consume football, just not necessarily the domestic league, I think that's proven.

Sean (34:57.11) I mean, think one of the things I think there is similarities between football and basketball. They've both got big participation bases. They've both got a local league that isn't the top league like the NBA is the top league, the Premier League, the Sierra. Like they're the top leagues. But then there's this ability for you to have thriving national teams. know, having people and I think the NBA has done a great job in revitalizing their product to fans in, you know, making it something that you want to that want to entertain that I think is sitting there for the A -League and the teams.

And there's a bunch of teams that are doing an amazing job and filling stadiums. But I think that's a more like for like comparison because both the AFL and the NRL, their top league is the top league in the world because it's only a sport really played here. So I agree. There is a lot of looking over the fence at what other people are doing. And it's probably something to focus on your own product and the vast fan base and participation base that football has.

Vince (36:00.129) The other thing I'd mentioned, which is an important piece in, in all this is like, you know, there's so many people who watch the premier league in Australia, but don't care about the league, right? Like even if we just converted half of them, the league would be in rude health. they don't have to daily doesn't have to go after fans of the other codes or people who don't like football. There's enough people in Australia who like football for that competition to be sustainable and successful. And I think it will get there. But I think one of the big parts of it is this whole transfer market stuff.

Now, I like I know people use the fact that the best players leave the league as a bit of a stick to beat it with in terms of you can't retain talent. Why would anyone watch? Well, there's like 200 leagues around the world, which are effectively feeder leagues to the top five. And people tend to follow those teams. It's about connection with club and community, in my opinion. And then it's also about creating relevance in the global sphere in terms of player sales.

So the more players like Nestor Irencundo who come out of the A -League and go and play for teams like Bayern Munich and make people in Europe stand up and take notice, the more relevant the A -League will feel in global terms because then people will start to think, hang on, there's something going on down there. Maybe we should keep more of an eye on the A -League because they've produced this player who's gone to this big league and this player who's gone here and the Socceroos are doing this and the Matildas are doing that. So they must be getting something right.

I think that's really important to make people, I think they realize this, but maybe, you know, reinforce it a lot stronger is that the A -League is part of this big thing, global football. And that's good. We should be that and be that to the best we can because that's the way to make people who care about the Premier League care about the A -League, I think.

Sean (37:50.56) And is that something again, I mean, you're pretty much laying it out, but like, is that something you as a storyteller is looking forward to continue? Because again, Australians love seeing Australians do well overseas and following those players as they're rising up the ranks and performing. And like you said, people are still are now cheering on Ange and what he's doing with Tottenham.

Is that connection piece and rather than having the glass half empty, they're leaving our league, it's not worth staying, when we should be celebrating them leaving the league because of, you know, skill development, player development, that's why they're being recruited and sort of, you know, the storyteller in you says, hey, I want to tell more of these stories of these young male and female footballers doing well on the global stage.

Vince (38:44.865) 100%. I think that's, that's the ideal. For me, if you want to map out like, selfishly a journalistic perspective, a perfect career from Australian football for me, when I'm trying to tell people good stories, it's a young kid who's grown up going to watch his local team. Massive fan of them, idolises the players, joins the youth team, graduation to the senior team, stars in the A league, gets sold, brings that club, you know, a few million dollarsBas a sort of repayment for the development and just the loyalty makes one or two steps in Europe makes it to a big league plays for the Socceroos or Matildas at a World Cup and does you know some nice things on the international stage and then come home and bring everything they've learned home.

When that player comes back to Australia, they bring all the stuff they've learned overseas with them. And they come home a hero as well. So that almost becomes a good young, but they always talk about the Irankunda ****types in particular as the sort of Holy Grail. You don't need to spend millions on a marquee player if you can get someone who comes from that area..

Vince (41:07.219) And stars and goes on to the next level. Like in his last season for Adelaide United, Nestor Irankunda was bringing people to games in a way that the marquee does, if not even better. He was a massive talking point in Adelaide. And imagine that player going through their career and then coming back at the end of it and finishing their career at that club. Think about all the stories within that. That's such a rich journey. You know what mean? That's a textbook.

That's what we want our players to do for the benefit of the game and the teams they play for. But it's also, that's beautiful. What a lovely story that is. And every step of the way, there's different things to be able to tell people when and angles of it to bring people. And let's just get as many of those as we possibly can as a game, I think, because the more who go overseas, the more opportunities there are for players beneath them. And we're producing a lot of them. We got like 2 million participants in this country, but only 12 teams in the A league who are Australian 13 now with Auckland FC.

That's not many roster spots. So I'm more of the opinion these days of bring him through, let him shine and get him out of here, bring in the money and then do the next one and just keep pumping them out because the more that are across Europe as well, they'll elevate the national teams and everything they do will elevate our reputation internationally. It's a holistic thing. But that's what we got to do more of in football.

Sean (42:34.092) Well, Vince , I appreciate you coming on and thank you very much for the book. I really enjoyed it. I want to get to the Sports Geek Closing Five. Do you remember the first sports event you ever attended?

Vince (42:41.643) Let's go.

I think I do. It would have been either a Grand Prix in Adelaide back in the day when they had it, or I don't know if I actually went, I think I did, but I'm not certain. So the other one would be, and this is a little bit shameful to admit as a passionate Port Adelaide fan, but probably an Adelaide Crows game before 1997, because my family lives in that part of Adelaide and my uncle played Rezzy's in the SA NFL for the Port Magpies.

But we got knocked back in 1990, whatever it was, when we tried to join the VFL or the AFL. And until Port came in, my dad and therefore me followed the Crows for a little bit. But I'll tell you what, showdown number one of 1997, we were back in the black and white, mate. And we were passionately hating the Crows as we do to this day.

Sean (43:37.176) Very, very good, very good. You would have been a lot of sports events in your time and also a lot of media rooms. Do you have a favorite food or a go -to food at a sports event?

Vince (43:49.921) Sort of, not really. The way I thought about this question was the best press box food experience I've ever had was when I was in Saudi Arabia, I think in 2016 or 2017 for a soccer who's away fixture. And this was the pre -match press conference. So not even the match itself, but I've never seen a spread of like incredible, intricate, tiny little desserts, the kind of things you'd expect to receive at a fine dining restaurant for your petit fours or even like a Peter Gilmore dessert type thing.

Just crazy, like a massive table with all this stuff piled up high. And I'm just like, who is this for? There's like 10 of us. Absolutely insane. I've never seen anything like that. But in terms of more regular food at a sporting event, I'm not a big one for eating food at sporting events to be honest, because particularly ones I'm at as a fan, I get quite nervous. I don't like eating in that situation. But the Women's World Cup last year,

And I don't know if they sold this in the stands at a core stadium, but they certainly did in the press area. There was a cheeseburger there that I still think about. Like whenever I talk to people about how good covering the World Cup was, my mind very quickly turns to probably after the France penalty shootout. Yeah, but bloody hell, how good were the burgers at a core? They were unreal. They were so good. Just like nothing fancy about it. Just good ingredients in a foil thing. That's what you want.

Sean (45:15.544) Terrific, terrific. What's the first app you open in the morning?

Vince (45:20.601) Unfortunately, it's Twitter or X. It's just where stuff happens. It's where most people who don't have my contact details try to reach me, which can sometimes happen overnight, particularly, you know, with Europe and the time difference. And it's also just where like, it's like the dashboard for Australian football. Unfortunately, we should probably try and change that. But until then, it is what it is.

Sean (45:44.685) Yeah.

And is there someone that the podcast listeners should follow? It be a fellow author or someone that you follow that they should give a follow to and why.

Vince (45:56.703) Yeah, I want to give a shout out here too. So on X, it's the username is scout underscore Aussie. And on Instagram, it's Aussie scout one one word. So this is I won't reveal their identity because I've been asked not to. But a person who basically keeps track of, you know, good young Australian players. So if anyone's interested in the stuff I just spoke about in terms of following the journeys of your next Irankunda types or whatever.

This is the guy to follow. He's tracking him from when they're playing in youth teams for A -league clubs and youth international football, but also talking about bigger picture stuff around the game and how we play it and the structure and the tactics and the analysis stuff. This has been one of the best sort of recent additions to soccer Twitter in the last couple of years is this Aussie scout guy who remains anonymous, but hopefully one day soon will reveal themselves.

Sean (46:31.799) Okay.

Sean (46:54.288) Trudy, did you find out what Angie's burner accounts were in your research?

Vince (46:59.795) I didn't know. But I am assured at least during the Socceroos days there was one. And I vaguely remember apologising to him under my breath at one press conference after I'd understood this, just saying, yeah, sorry about all the tweets in general sort of thing. I think he had a bit of a chuckle and moved on pretty quickly.

Sean (47:23.082) And lastly, we may have spoiled the result, but I always ask people what social media platform is your MVP? Is it Begrudgingly X or is there another one that is a riser for you?

Vince (47:32.465) begrudgingly X, but there is a rise. I think for me personally, Reddit, you almost can't get a good Google search result these days without putting Reddit in with your search query. And you can't, you shouldn't always trust, you know, the accounts of random individuals on the internet. But it just seems to me, particularly for the kind of stuff that I'm into and, you know,

Vince (47:58.453) Like football, but also like, you know, the shows and movies that I like, I really like, and I like to dive into, you know, everything about them. It looks like there's some good communities building on Reddit. I don't quite understand the upvote downvote thing, but like, just as a person who's reading and trying to get information and sort of, you know, give some good nutrition to my brain to make me think about certainly football things in a different way and branch my horizons, I find Reddit an increasing go -to and hopefully at some point soon it knocks off X because that place is yeah

Sean (48:34.368) I mean, Reddit has definitely replaced all of those clunky bulletin board and fan forums and that collective voice. You can still fall down a really big conspiracy hole or something that's completely wrong that a lot of people get into. But yeah, it is a place for vibrant discussion, especially if get to a subreddit that is really, really active. Lastly, if people are listening to the podcast and…

Vince (48:47.204) yeah.

Sean (49:01.068) want to ask a question about the book or want to reach out, what's the best platform to do so?

Vince (49:07.411) Unfortunately, X, yeah. No, I'm at Vince Rugari there. I think also the same on Instagram. My email is also in my bio on X as well. yeah, I'm happy to, if anyone wants to know more about the book process or literally anything other, anything to do with Australian football, just mention me on Twitter. I usually try and respond and I play nice generally.

Sean (49:37.028) thank you very much for coming on the podcast. All the best with the book. You're out there giving it the promotion. But I think it does a lot of it. You'll get a lot of word of mouth promotion. You will definitely from me. So thanks again for coming on the podcast.

Vince (49:49.717) Nah, my pleasure, mate. Thank you so much for having me. Cheers.