I remember when this happened. The process was approved in 2005, the move became final on January 1, 2006.

Australia, out of the Oceania Football Confederation … and in to the Asian Football Confederation.

It seemed weird to me. Bizarre. A mistake.  If nothing else, geographically. Australia is its own continent. It’s no more a part of Asia than is Alaska. Close, but not there.

So, huh?

Today, back over in Doha for the final six days of the 2011 Asian Cup, I had it explained to me. By an Aussie who ought to know, team captain Lucas Neill.

I wrote about this for The National. I’m fairly certain I’m not the only person in Europe, Africa, the Americas, who wondered “what is up with that?”

Thinking about it, especially during the Asian Cup, I had begun to figure out some of this, but my understanding had reached a dead end.

I got this far: Australia decided it was better to run off and join Asia, which would entail some long travel to strange places and stronger opponents, because FIFA would never give Oceania more than that “half” berth for World Cup purposes.

Thus, every four years, Australia would win Oceania’s qualifying tournament, and then have to play a home-and-home with a fourth- or fifth-place team out of another continent. It was South America  a couple of times, Concacaf at least once … and that was a crapshoot, for Australia. The other team would have just finished a difficult (Concacaf) or seriously difficult (Conmebol) qualifying tournament and be at some fairly high pitch of preparation, while the Aussies may have spent six months playing Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and (the tough one) New Zealand.

By joining Asia, Australia would have a shot at one of Asia’s four World Cup berths, a number that is likely to rise in future years, by the way … and Australia’s soccer brains had decided they liked their chances of being one of those four — even taking into account Japan and South Korea, serious soccer nations, and semi-significant soccer nations like Saudi Arabia, Iran and North Korea. Heck, even China, someday.

They were right, at least so far. They blew through qualifying for South Africa 2010, giving up only one goal in their final, five-team pool, and there they were.

It’s the rest of it I didn’t get. And Lukas Neill explained it.

If you didn’t follow the link, here it is, in brief:

1. Australia rarely saw quality competition as a national side. More and more nations limit their serious international soccer to continental qualifying for the World Cup, and qualifying and participation in their continental tourney, and what is the advantage for any serious soccer nation (the closest being Japan) in going down to Australia to play?

2. Australia not only was unlikely to get better in matches against Fiji, it also brought no glory with it. It impressed no one. Thus, for the handful of Aussies playing with major clubs in the world, it was difficult to get those clubs to commit to long trips to participate in a rout of an island nation. Why should Everton, for example, give up Tim Cahill for two weeks and a punishingly long journey? And why would Cahill or Neill (who played in England for 15 years) even want to go? They almost certainly wouldn’t be needed.

3. The Asian federation guaranteed Australia 1) solid, sometimes strong, competition in regional qualifying, 2) gave them a chance to compete in a serious and closely followed (down here, anyway) international tournament like the Asian Cup and 3) allowed them to host a serious international event that was not the World Cup. Like the 2015 Asian Cup, to be played in Australia.

The move was a bit of a gamble. Australia abdicated as Kings of Tinytown and signed up for “this could be rough if China and India ever get their stuff together.” And it was a little weird, giving up the First World trappings of a confederation with New Zealand and a bunch of resorts … for matches in places like Uzbekistan and Iran and Iraq, and just a bunch of countries with enormous cultural and political differences.

But it made sense, and it has paid off. Australia already had been moving toward closer integration, economically, with Asia (“We’re often referred to as Australasia, and for a while now,” Neill said.) and it found competition. Good competition, but not so good that it buried Australia on the world scene.

The tally so far? Two Asian Cups, one quarterfinal appearance (2007), one semifinal appearance (2011), a successful Asian Cup host bid (2015) and an easy road to qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. The Aussies now are ranked in the top 30, and have been for a while, and they are two victories from the most significant soccer championship in the nation’s history.

All because they made a move that didn’t make sense to a guy in California. It made plenty of sense for the guys living in Oz.