Sydney FC vs. Adelaide United

On October 4th, we traveled to the Sydney Football Stadium to watch a football (soccer) game between the Sydney Football Club and Adelaide United. Within the Sydney football league their are three leagues: A-league, W-league, and Youth league. We watched the A-league game. As I entered the football stadium, I felt like this sporting event had a different feel to it. Although the stadium was not too crowded, their was a fan section with about 150-200 people cheering the whole game. They had multiple different chants for each event that occurred in the game. Each chant was pretty entertaining and unique. Their was a guy in the middle of the section with a megaphone leading each chant. As far as the actual game went, Sydney Football Club lost a true nail biter. With a 1-0 lead after a penalty kick, Adelaide fought their way back to tie the match at 1. With regular time just ended, and stoppage time dwindling Adelaide scored a goal to go up 2-1 and seal the deal. It was heartbreaking, but a great game to watch. We had great seats at the match, about 15 rows from the field. I even bought my first beer with my mate at a stadium.
When I said before that the event had a different feel to it, than the other events I went to previously, such as: rugby league and AFL, I noticed the stadium was not full like the other games. At the other matches, the stadiums were almost completely full. This was kind of bothering me that the stadium was less than half full, so I asked an Australian why it was like this. He said it could be a combination of three things: 1. It was labor day 2. The Sydney Football Club was not performing too well this year and 3. Football(soccer) is not as big of a sport in Australia as rugby league and AFL. I think the main contributing factor to the empty stadium \ is the small popularity of the sport in Australia. Just like in the states, soccer is not too popular. It is funny to see how popularity of different sports in different cultures and countries differ.
All in all it was a great day at the Sydney Football Stadium, although the Football Club lost it was a great game and an even better culture experience.