And Now, A Rap Soundtrack To Tonight’s All-Important Socceroos Vs Iraq Game

Tonight, at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium, Australia’s national roundball team — the Socceroos — play their final group match against 98th-ranked Iraq in an effort to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

But don’t start setting your 4am alarms or planning your visit to some underwhelming live site just yet. Despite the arduously long qualification campaign, Iraq has the chance to go all ‘Red Wedding’ on us, and derail the campaign just as we’re about to get to make it to the promised land.

“I don’t even get this whole qualification process”, you’re saying. “I haven’t watched soccer since the last World Cup and I’d rather be downloading Yeezus and googling pictures of Kimye’s baby.”

Well, fair enough. But, if you care to be brought up to speed on this exciting occasion, read on, for I’ve gone into the lab and cooked up a very special rap soundtrack to bring a few of the key themes and subtexts of tonight’s game to life.

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Track 1: ‘Scenario’ by A Tribe Called Quest

Why? Because what the hell IS the scenario, anyway? What do we need to do to qualify?

Well, the ideal scenario is of course a win, which will have the Socceroos samba-ing their way through to Brazil 2014 by the end of the night. Beyond that, things get about as intricate as this all-time crew track from Tribe and Leaders of the New School. Let’s break it down:

– If we lose, we need Jordan and Oman to draw tonight for us to qualify.
– If we draw, we need Oman to draw or lose to Jordan for us to qualify.
– If Iraq beats us 5-0, Busta Rhymes refuses to drop his verse at the end of this track ever again.

And if we don’t qualify now? We’d be forced into two consecutive playoff match-ups, one against another Asian side and then a likely showdown against our old South American rivals, Uruguay. This would not be good.

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Track 2: ’30 Something’ by Jay-Z

Why? Because a lot of our key guys are old as f**k.

The Jiggaman has proven over the years that rappers can get better (or at least richer and more married to Beyoncé) with age. This 2006 ode to maturity is an apt descriptor of the core of this side, many of whom (to put it bluntly) are on their last legs as professional footballers.

Familiar names like Lucas Neill (35), Mark Schwarzer (40) and Marco Bresciano (33) are staring down the barrel of their last shot at a World Cup. Somehow, they’ve held off Father Time’s indiscriminate pull with some vintage performances in the last couple of weeks to put the team on the brink of qualification (Neill even scored his first ever international goal — in his 91st cap — in last week’s qualifier win against Jordan).

Then there’s the curious case of Sasa Ognenovski. One of the older players in the squad at 34, the Melbournian bloomed insanely late to make his international debut at 31, and became the first (and still only) Australian to ever be named ‘Asian Footballer of the Year’, at the tender age of 32.

All these guys are showing that in football, as in the rap game, sometimes you can stay relevant even after you’ve become a little older and fatter.

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Track 3: ‘Ladies Night’ by Lil Kim, Left Eye, Da Brat, Missy Elliott and Angie Martinez

Why? Because Socceroos coach Holger Osieck needs an education in female empowerment.

‘Roos coach Holger Osieck added his ill-advised two Euro-cents into Australia’s recent misogyny debate last week, when he made an apparently biblical gaffe prior to a post-match press conference. “Women should shut up in public,” he said, which, incredibly, is perhaps the 4th or 5th worst thing an Australian public figure did or said to a woman during the past fortnight.

To counter his antiquated attitude to gender roles, it is only appropriate to include a sample of some of the illest female MCs to ever do it with this classic 1997 posse track.

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Track 4: ‘I’m Not a Star’ by Rick Ross 

Why? Because most of our guys aren’t stars, but some are right on the verge of a breakthrough.

Rick Ross’ breakthrough track and ode to anonymity is dedicated to this generation of players; those who are loading up the choppers and looking to make themselves household names in 2014.

First, there’s Robbie Kruse, who has set the qualification campaign alight, including scoring and laying on a couple of goals in a man of the match performance against Jordan last week

Then there’s Tommy Oar, who is currently establishing a promising career in the Dutch first division with FC Utrecht and previously made waves in the A-League with Brisbane Roar, leading several pundits to put the ‘next Harry Kewell’ tag on his young shoulders.

And finally, we have Tom Rogic, who at 20 is one of our most promising prospects. In addition to being snapped up by one of the world’s most famous clubs (Glasgow Celtic), Tom is already making an impact off the bench for the national team, and also inspired this amazing video from a group of Thai school children.

I have no idea how that video happened.

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Track 5: ‘Can’t C Me’ by 2Pac

Why? Because, put simply, if we don’t qualify, then you’re not gonna see soccer in the Australian media limelight for quite some time… and that would be a sad thing.

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The World Cup Qualifier between the Socceroos and Iraq kicks off tonight at 7:30pm at ANZ Stadium (Sydney); you can no longer get tickets, but tune into SBS One from 8pm (AEST).

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When he’s not watching sports, thinking about sports and talking about sports, James Wright is writing about sports for Junkee. He has contributed to several publications like Vice and TwoThousand, and was co-founder of the popular NBA blog, The Sport Count, until 2010 (when the domain was stolen by an unknown URL squatter). Find him on Twitter at @JamesHova