The same is generally true of the market for sports participation, with an obvious exception: soccer wins that contest hands down. Basketball, cycling, athletics, netball and cricket are all popular pursuits; between 25 and 30 per cent of Australian children aged six to 13 take part in those activities regularly. Yet just under half (48 per cent) of kids that age play soccer. Only swimming (49 per cent) is a more popular exercise, which is likely driven by parents (quite rightly) trying to prevent their children from drowning.

This trend continues into adulthood: far more Australian men and women play soccer than other team sports, and the rate is growing. Yet soccer has never been at the top of the nation's sporting pile, at least culturally. For much of last century, it was barely seen as a mainstream sport. The late Socceroos captain Johnny Warren put it best in the title of his autobiography: many Australians dismissed soccer as a game played by Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters, and preferred instead to watch the smaller, more familiar codes that Australia excelled in, even if the competition extended only to a handful of other countries.

Nonetheless, every four years, the World Cup finals – which dwarf even the Olympics – remind us that soccer is the game that unites the globe and attracts the lion's share of the world's elite athletes. On Saturday night, our national rugby and cricket teams played tests, and the domestic rugby league and AFL competitions continued, too. Yet 3.4 million people watched SBS's coverage of Australia's narrow World Cup loss to France; an enormous audience that doesn't count those who watched the match via the other broadcaster, Optus Sport. An estimated 10,000 Australians had journeyed to remote Kazan, in Tatarstan, to watch the Socceroos' valiant performance at the stadium. Increasingly, the Socceroos are the team that unites Australians.

And they are forging a proud history. Australia is a soccer minnow: we are a small nation; the sport remains underdeveloped here; and our international rivals, particularly in Asia, are pouring billions of dollars into player development that we can't match. Yet Russia 2018 is our fourth consecutive World Cup finals appearance, having previously qualified only once. Our players reflect our country's diverse ethnic make-up, but the manner in which they play embodies qualities we regard as the best of our national character: they dig in for their teammates, never yield hope and clearly believe that a cohesive team can triumph even against vastly more talented players.

The Socceroos may well lose all of their games at these finals. But if they play with the spirit they showed against France, they will inspire lofty dreams in children watching back home. Who knows: those children may one day help us grow beyond minnows into something more formidable on the sporting world's biggest stage.