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Wednesday 6 February 2008

We're gonna win the cup..the World Cup!

Australia 3 Qatar 0

It was tense for about a minute of so and then Australia won. You can read match reports, tactical analysis etc in all the papers and webs...so here's mine.

Aussie fans You see they turned out in huge numbers, sang their hearts out, and didn't boo the anthem of Qatar. Criticised for booing the Uruguay anthem that great night, Uruguay deserved it and the fans socked it to them. Fair play Australia.



Qatari fansMore Qatari fans in the stadium than people in Qatar. It's a small country right!

Worst ad/sponsorNike ran an ad, "It's war out there"..."Weapons of match destruction" Funny, intelligent? In a world full of war, I don't need it not at my sporting events.

Best goal Josh Kennedy, great header from distance. Worryingly the big fellow got injured...again?

Best celebration Marco Bresciano, can't wait to see the little kids down the oval doing the Spartacus celebration.

Best Coach Celebration Henk Duut being very un-Dutch. Nearly knocked Graham Arnold as he leapt to cheer a goal, an Aussie goal. Welcome aboard Aussie Duut.

Best Canberra moment Carl Valeri taking to the pitch...and playing a couple of wonderful passes in forward positions.

Worst A-League moment John Aloisi missing a sitter, or Craig Moore throttling an opposing player.

Hope for the future The new strike force, McDonald and Kennedy. We need this to get us to the World Cup after Mark Viduka has shown signs of quitting/age.

9 comments:

Cecilia said...

Great to see Kennedy and Macca together, I think they really complement each other. Different players, Macca's great at holding the ball and Kennedy has excellent aerial ability.

And did you expect anything less from Moore? I still think he's a gun - despite his temper.

I think the stand-out performers were Culina (his passes in the first half were excellent, especially those to Carney) and perhaps even more so Carney (created havoc down the left wing all night, was a bit of a handful, and hasn't he improved since he left Sydney FC for colder weather?!?!)

It's a relief to get off on a good start. Now we need to keep it up!

Eamonn said...

Yesss..great start, but Carney not really tesed defensively...and the team were again exposed rather easily in the second hafl..time and time again

but some good performances and a real relief

Cecilia said...

True, but I found it a relief to see Carney playing the ball in front of the player he was passing to - unlike most A-League players who pass to feet. So I got my kicks out of having seen him improve as a player.

Yes, we were exposed quite often in the second half and I'm not sure if it was tiredness or laziness kicking in. I think we took our foot off the accelerator in the second half - you could see that we weren't chasing down every ball any more and that our passing and general effort went a little out the window.

Eamonn said...

Cecilia nice to see a team win at the Dome with a bit of style:)

any thoughts on the atmosphere assuming you were in the stadium

Cecilia said...

Well I wasn't with the GGA so I can't comment on their atmosphere. I couldn't hear them at all, which was weird, as I'm used to hearing singing from either the South End or North End.

Pregame wasn't anything special - just the regular prematch gathering at a pub, and the hilarity of talking absolute bollocks with them.

I was up on level 3 (I found it to be a better view than my regular level 1 prawn sandwich spot), and it was excellent to see the Dome packed to the rafters. It's been a while since that a sight like that, and it felt good.

I loved Schwarzer's shirt and socks colour. Shame about the white trim on the left shoulder and the vertical stripes on the socks... in honour of Mr Beanhead, "Sort your socks out!"

Neil said...

I was also up on level 3 - could barely hear the GGA and the atmosphere in general was a bit disappointing although the crowd numbers weren't.

Good first half and after going 3 goals up you sort of expected them to slow down in the second half.

Didn't think too much of the new strip - have just added a strip to the old design.

Good result - hope it bodes well for the rest of the qualifying.

And finally, booing the national anthem of another country is not on. Its extremely poor form. Its about having some respect for your opposition.

Eamonn said...

Didn't hear any booing of Qatar national anthem on the TV..agreed it is very poor form Neil, but fans were criticised after the Uruguay game...but to me just shows that's about how the Aussies were treated, not saying I agreed with it, I didn't, but perhaps can understand why they did it...

also how come Victory fans pump out an atmosphere, particularly last seaosn, but Socceroos can't seem to get hat singing stuff going

Cecilia said...

I have been told that there is a divide between Melbourne Victory fans and GGA peope who live in Melbourne... So while MV folk can sing their hearts out, I think it's a leadership thing. The MV fans won'te have GGA as their leader...

Probably something to do with MV fans wanting to have their own identity and GGA being an incorporated group?

I'm not really sure of the entire situation, as I do tend to do my own thing for all football matches I attend.

I missed the booing, I was with the St John's first aid people at the time. LOL.

Neil said...

" ... I missed the booing, I was with the St John's first aid people at the time. LOL."

There wasn't a whole lot of booing but there was some noise. Did the pre game nerves get to you? :)