A Dead Man’s Dream and Why Settling Is a Mug’s Game

Now look, I’ll be upfront with you — I’m a VFL man at heart, and the round ball game isn’t exactly what I reach for on a Saturday afternoon when there’s footy on somewhere. But every now and then, something comes out of a completely different sport that makes you put down your tea and actually think.

Tony Popovic, the bloke steering the Socceroos through what feels like an endless World Cup qualification campaign, has been invoking the memory of Johnny Warren — the great Australian soccer pioneer who passed away back in 2004. Warren, by all accounts, was a man ahead of his time, the sort of figure who dragged a code into the light through sheer force of will and belief. And the question Warren apparently used to ask — why are we satisfied with just getting there? — is now the question Popovic is using to drive his players toward something more than a plane ticket to the tournament.

I’ll be honest, as a Carlton man who’s watched his beloved Blues fumble around for the better part of two decades now, the concept of ambition being used as fuel rather than just a thing people say at press conferences is genuinely refreshing. We could use some of that over at Princes Park — or Ikon Park, or whatever they’re calling it this week.

Warren’s Question Still Echoes

The reason Johnny Warren’s legacy endures isn’t just the matches he played or the goals he scored. It’s because he kept asking the uncomfortable question. Why is good enough considered good enough? Why does Australian sport — and this applies well beyond soccer, believe me — so often celebrate the participation prize when the real prize is sitting right there if you’re willing to reach for it?

Popovic, from everything I’ve read and heard, is a man who doesn’t really do comfortable. He’s the sort of coach who looks at a squad that’s scraped into a World Cup and sees not a destination but a starting point. And he’s using Warren’s spirit — this idea of demanding more from yourself and your country — to push his players into genuinely believing they can do something extraordinary, as he put it.

Now, I’m not here to write a soccer column — FootyTalk’s readers know what I think about the AFL enough as it is — but this is really a story about ambition and memory and the way legends can speak to you from beyond the grave if you’re actually listening.

What the VFL — Sorry, AFL — Could Learn

Back in my day, Carlton didn’t just turn up to finals hoping things would work out. We turned up expecting to win. Ted Whitten wouldn’t have known what to do with the concept of being satisfied just making September. The idea would have baffled him. And yet here we are, in 2024, in a competition where getting to the second week of finals feels like some kind of crowning achievement for two-thirds of the clubs involved.

I look at some of the AFL’s powerhouses — you know the ones, they’ve got the premiership flags and the full-time sports scientists and the academies pumping out talent — and even they sometimes seem to lose that killer ambition the moment things get tough in September. Popovic talking about Warren is a reminder that the great coaches and cultures don’t celebrate the journey; they celebrate the destination.

Carlton’s had plenty of journeys recently. I’d quite like a destination for once.

The Danger of Low Expectations

Here’s what gnaws at me, and it’s something I think applies across all Australian sport: we have a long and proud tradition of punching above our weight, of producing remarkable athlets from a relatively small population who go out and stun the world. We’ve done it in cricket, in swimming, in athletics, and yes, even in this round ball game that I once dismissed entirely.

But there’s a version of that story where humility curdles into low expectations. Where the underdog spirit — which is genuinely wonderful — becomes an excuse not to back yourself fully. Warren saw that danger in soccer decades ago. He wasn’t content for Australia to be a plucky qualifier; he wanted his code to genuinely compete at the highest level.

Popovic inheriting that torch isn’t just good socccer management. It’s a philosophy. It’s the difference between a culture that celebrates arrival and one that demands more once it gets there.

Ambition in the Coaching Box

I think about the AFL coaches I’ve admired over the years — and I’ve been watching this game long enough to remember when the coaches wore suits and chain-smoked at three-quarter time — and the best ones always had this quality. They didn’t just prepare their team to be competitive. They prepared their team to win. There’s a subtle but enormous difference.

Popovic inheriting Warren’s question and applying it to a modern international squad is, in its own way, exactly what a coach like that does. You find a source of inspiration — a great of the game, a piece of history, a story worth honouring — and you make it practical. You say: this man asked why we settle. Now you answer him. Don’t settle.

I reckon if Carlton had been asking that question with real conviction for the last fifteen years instead of reshuffling the list and tinkering with the team structure every other season, we might have a couple more flags in the cabinet. Just saying.

The Legacy of the Right Questions

What strikes me most about the Johnny Warren story is that the most powerful thing he left behind wasn’t a goal or a statistic. It was a question. A question that apparently still has the power to motivate a national coach and a squad of professional footballers decades after the man who asked it first passed away.

That’s the kind of legacy that matters. Not the trophies — though Lord knows a few more trophies would be welcome in the Carlton rooms — but the standard you set and the questions you force your successors to answer.

Warren wanted more for his code. Popovic wants more for his players. And if the Socceroos go out at this World Cup and genuinely push the boundaries of what Australian soccer thinks it can achieve, then Warren’s question will have done its job one more time.

What We Owe the Legends

Back in my day — and I know, I know, here he goes again — the great figures of Australian sport weren’t just celebrated. They were studied. Their standards were adopted. You didn’t just hang their photo on the wall; you tried to live up to what the photo represented.

Popovic doing that with Warren is the right thing. It’s the old-school thing. It’s the thing that head offices and marquee appointments and glossy strategy documents can never manufacture, because it comes from genuine reverence for someone who laid the groundwork and asked the hard question so you wouldn’t have to start from scratch.

I might not follow the Socceroos all that closely. But I’ll be watching with a bit more interest knowing that somewhere in that camp, Johnny Warren’s spirit is sitting in the room asking: is this really the best you can do?

It shouldn’t be a question that’s too hard to answer. For the Socceroos or, while I’m dreaming, for Carlton Football Club.