It's a fine sentiment, and one Ange Postecoglou passionately shares. But while the 23 players who end up representing Australia in Brazil will be left in no doubt about what it should mean to play for their country, there is something far more prosaic to reward them. Money.
Once again, the Socceroos are set to be one of the highest-paid teams at the World Cup. Amazing, when you think about it. Combine match fees and prizemoney, and the squad will share around $2.6 million from the tournament, or up to $150,000 per player. That's guaranteed: win, lose or draw.
Players from some of the teams likely to progress deep into the competition might end up with more, but they also face the risk of earning a lot less if they fail. Failure might hurt the pride of the Socceroos, but it won't hurt them in the hip pocket. It's a scenario which continues to cause the FFA plenty of angst.
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Publicly, and officially, there isn't a problem. To avoid it, the FFA and the player's union, Professional Footballers Australia (PFA), have agreed to postpone discussions on a new Socceroos collective bargaining agreement until January 30. That means neither the World Cup or the Asian Cup will be disrupted by industrial action.
Yet while the sabres have been put back in their sheaths, a confrontation is looming. David Gallop is unlkely to be as compliant as his predecessor, Ben Buckley, when it comes to determining what slice the players should get from the pie. Brendan Schwab, the PFA's chief negotiator, will soon discover he's got a fight on his hands.
There is one important distinction to make. The A-League agreement has already been rolled over for another two years, so club players will continue to share in $25 million per year, which is about 28 per cent of the FFA's annual turnover. Given global market forces and the constraints of the salary cap, that seems fair enough. There are still those inside head office who bemoan a "public service" mentality among A-League players when their working conditions are taken into account, but it's a moot point.
What's not in question is that once the players graduate to the national team, their pay and conditions start to look generous. Very generous indeed. And this is where the philisophical debate catches fire. Playing for the honour of the national shirt, as Rasic echoes, is a sentiment shared by many. It's an old-fashioned view which – interestingly – seems to have withstood the test of time.
Should players who are in general terms already well renumerated be paid so much to represent their country? Particularly when the Socceroos, as a commercial entity, are struggling as much as they are at the moment. Gates have dropped dramatically since they heady days of 2006-10 and incredible as it may seem, the Socceroos will go to Brazil without a major sponsor. Postecoglou doesn't just have to rebuild a team. He has to rebuild a brand.
Crying poor is a familiar negotiating tool, of course, and one which is likely to cut little ice with Schwab, who has seen and heard it all before. But the fact remains it costs about $10 million a year to run the Socceroos, of which the players' share (when flights, hotels and match fees are taken into account) is about $450,000 per game.
It's an expensive business to assemble our national team and the sad truth is – apart from the odd "rainmaker" – the Socceroos have started to cost as much, if not more, than they make. And with the Asian Football Confederation set to revamp the next World Cup qualifying campaign to embrace box-office duds like Guam, Mongolia, Macau and Nepal, there's no quick fix in sight.
We're not about to question the pride, passion or patriotism of the players who are going to Brazil. Nor should we. But it might be time to question how much they get paid.
