Millions of Australians now know what hundreds of millions worldwide believe - soccer is a lot like life.
Sometimes life is beautiful. Sometimes life sucks.
For all the courage and endeavour they've shown, the respect and kudos they've earned, the new friends and fans they've made with their fantastic performances at the World Cup, the Socceroos also depart Germany as proof of what an unfair place the world can be.
When they arrived, few expected the Socceroos to get where they were on Monday - a split-second away from extra-time that probably would have seen them through to the last eight at the expense of a three-time world champion.
Yet the players did. They really believed they could go much further - the penalty that wasn't against Italy robbed them of the chance to ever find out.
Master coach Guus Hiddink had laid the groundwork brilliantly.
Three carefully selected friendlies, nearly three weeks of intensive physical training to make them the fittest team in the tournament, and successfully harnessing a work ethic, never-say-die attitude and brotherhood possessed by few sporting teams.
Hiddink also drew on the fact Australia had not been to the World Cup finals for 32 years.
The world - and every one of your countrymen and women - will be watching, he said. So go sit them all on their backside, and make them fall in love with you.
From their opening 20 minutes against Japan, it was clear this team wasn't the novelty act of swagmen and Crocodile Dundees the world expected.
Every Socceroo hugged every other before the game. Words were exchanged.
Then they went out and played composed, creative, committed possession football.
The type the world's elite play, rather than the panicked, crash-and-bash of Socceroos old.
A shocking refereeing decision - and wouldn't that become a recurring theme - left them an undeserved goal down against Japan.
They rode the cusp of elimination until the final six minutes. Two Tim Cahill goals and a John Aloisi strike later and Socceroos fever had a grip.
World champion Brazil was next. The hip-swivelling samba kings versus the hip and shoulder Aussies, said critics who viewed the Socceroos as a physical team.
But in Munich the world realised Australians could play football. Led by player of the tournament Lucas Neill, the Socceroos danced toe-to-toe with Brazil.
The only time Australia got out of step was in front of goal - and every time they tripped over German referee Markus Merk, blowing his whistle and wielding cards like a loose cannon on the dance floor gyrating to his own beat.
Merk hammered the Socceroos mercilessly as they lost 2-0.
Now for Croatia in Stuttgart. A goalkeeping error from Zeljko Kalac had the Socceroos again on the verge of bowing out. Up bobbed Harry Kewell, riding Australia's wave of fitness and fighting spirit to make it 2-2.
Croatia's Aussie-born Joe Simunic and English ref Graham Poll played their own game of yellow-card poker.
Simunic kept rugby-tackling Aussies and raising the stakes, Poll kept giving him cards, seemingly unable to grasp amid the high drama unfolding that one plus one plus one is actually three.
Luckily, it mattered little and Australia eventually was on its way to the elite round of the World Cup.
Fifteen thousand joyous Aussies in the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion banged their heads to AC-DC's You Shook Me All Night Long long after the final whistle - millions more at home celebrated just as wildly having seen something historic, dramatic, and quite extraordinary.
More was to come against Italy in the round of 16.
Harry Kewell on crutches with gout, of all things. Italy down to 10 men for 40 minutes and defending bravely. Australia unable to break them down, the game bound for extra-time. Another refereeing atrocity as Italy's Fabio Grosso tumbled over Socceroo Neill.
Spanish ref Luiz Medina Cantalejo pointed to the penalty spot and the Socceroos to the exit door. It was over. A nation transfixed wept.
Soccer - a sport with such slender margins - is like no other. It can leave you breathless, render you speechless.
It can elate you, frustrate you, deflate you, bring every emotion to the surface and beyond.
The Socceroos have done it all to us in the past 15 days - four more compelling episodes of sporting drama back-to-back you may never see.
They now have the potential to galvanise Australia regularly like our cricketers.
In the world's eyes now, Australia is a respected soccer nation.
The Socceroos have plenty of work to do to become a Brazil, Germany, Argentina or Italy. But they are many steps closer than two weeks ago.
And so are we, to becoming a nation which truly embraces the real football like the rest of the world, thanks to one of Australia's finest and most memorable sporting performances.
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