Try telling these Newcastle Jets fans that the F3 Derby isn't important. Credit:AAP Had a sleeping giant woken up? Would the code take over cricket or the AFL? How successful, profitable and ubiquitous could the Socceroos' 2006 World Cup exploits help make the fledgling A-League? Those questions helped define that time in the sport, in addition to what happened on the field, and they've continued to define, for some, not least Football Federation Australia, the code today as it battles a myriad of problems. The off-field hopes and dreams we attached to the Socceroos' 2006 success still linger today, but do we ever ask if we wanted too much from the sport or why we even sought such lofty standards on top of yearning for on-field success? Obviously not, because 10 years after that Uruguay game and nine years after those wonderful scenes in Germany the game's governing body raised the stakes.

FFA's Whole of Football plan released in 2015 codified such targets under the aim of making "football the largest and most popular sport in Australia" with "more grassroots participants than any other code" and "more fans than any other code" in the next 20 years. Grassroots participation isn't an issue – soccer is Australia's most played sport. Turning grassroots participation into bums on seats at the A-League, and paid-up club membership holders, is the "problem" the code faces. Although in some ways it's only a problem if you want it to be. Somewhere along the way we chose to align ourselves with the benchmarks the AFL and NRL run their competitions by. The AFL, in particular, is a membership and attendance behemoth so why in FFA's Whole of Football plan are we choosing to fight them on that benchmark? Or why are we even choosing to fight the AFL at all?

What's wrong with getting 24,804 fans to Melbourne Victory against Sydney FC? Or 35,792 to a Melbourne derby a week later? The Sydney derby last week attracted 36,057 people and had an incredible atmosphere, but still people complained that the attendance was too low. If a Perth Glory or a Newcastle Jets can survive on an average crowd of around 10,000 people then that's wrong with that? Surely the league can make current attendance and membership figures work, however meek some may judge them to be. I'm not saying the FFA shouldn't have targets. Every organisation needs them. But why be so ambitious?

There would have been nothing wrong with planning for a sustainable game, rather than trying to make it the biggest. When most clubs return a loss, and by the standards of some, struggle with attendances and membership, it seems a reach to expect them to have eclipsed the AFL, NRL and cricket in 20 years' time. The A-League is special in and of itself. While it isn't the NSL (which was beautiful for many reasons – not least the way most clubs were proper grassroots organisations, cultural touchstones and community hubs), it does have its own character, personality and cultural touchstones no matter how trivial some might judge them to be. You've got a rivalry like the F3 Derby (between the Central Coast Mariners and the Newcastle Jets) where the latest flashpoint came via a Mariners' barbecue sauce bottle mascot giving a double-barrelled middle-finger salute to Jets fans. Or the George Calombaris situation; where one season the celebrity chef and Melbourne Victory's No.1 ticket holder participates in a club-made video to stop anti-social behaviour, then the next he cops a fine for assaulting a Sydney FC fan.

There was also then-Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar's infamous "piss-ant town" dummy spit in 2009, where he derided a toxic culture around the city's soccer side following a 4-0 loss to Melbourne Victory. "Because of a piss-ant town this club will never win anything, until you get rid of that crap." These, for me, are iconic moments and are reasons why I love the A-League. I love it for what it is and not for what FFA or anyone else hopes for it to be; 8000 at a Melbourne City home match – sure, it could be better, but it's still pretty good as it is. At least City don't have to worry about the money drying up. Yes, youth development pathways could improve in the A-League, the season could be longer and the off-season shorter, but these issues don't need to be beholden to soccer being the biggest game in Australia. Nor does the performance of the national team. In fact, these aspects of the game were all pretty strong during "the bad old days" when the NSL and Soccer Australia ruled the roost, so it beggars belief that FFA is currently just treading water while running soccer in 2017.