The new look Australian Soccerroos debuted tonight with a rousing 2 nil victory over Kuwait. Goals courtesty of Sasho Petrovski and Adelaide's own Travis Dodd. It was a nail biting moment there as the 2 goals actually came in the last 15 minutes of the match. Australia now has qualified for the Asian Cup championships next July.
A little bit of history here but this is the first time Australia is in the Asian confederation and the Asian Cup finals. It's always been part of the Oceanic Confederation which has not provided more skilled opponents. With being part of Asia, Australia will have a chance to compete with high caliber teams like China, Japan and Korea on a regular basis.
The Matilda's have made an impressive debut and now it's the men's team's turn to show us what they're made of. Mind you, this Soccerro's team that brough us to the Asian Cup is a totally different team from a month ago in the World Cup Championships. Most of those guys are playing in Europe and were unable to play for this game. This new team is composed mainly of local A-Leauge players. They had a tetative start in tonight's game but they quickly gelled togethr as the game wore on. Kuwait's goalkeeper was kept on his toes for most of the match and stopped quite a few shots in the first half. In the end Australia just wore down the defense and produced a great result.
There was supposed to be another game scheduled against Lebanon here in Adelaide but because of the war over there, Lebanon's pulled out of the Asian Cup so they cancelled the match. Too bad, we already bought tickets for it. So I guess I'd have to be content with watching the Australian team on TV for the moment.
Am I sounding too much like a football junkie? :)
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