Socceroos drop early lead to draw two all in Kuwait

Early goals from Luke Wilkshire and Dean Heffernan weren’t enough to see Australia over the line against Kuwait, and the draw leaves them in a precarious position heading into the last round of Asia Cup Qualifiers.

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Things started rosily for the Socceroos, with a Dean Heffernan long throw in only the third minute finding its way to Mile Jedinak, and was then headed the ball back to Russian based Wilkshire, who promptly drove the ball into the net with a rising volley. Only two minutes later Nicky Carle was fouled, and the resulting free-kick (taken by Carle) found Heffernan, and then the goal.

The game was then reduced to little more than long balls up and down the bumpy pitch, but this approach eventually saw the Kuwaitis claw one back, when in the fortieth minute Simon Colosimo failed to clear a clearance, and Hamad Enezi pounced. Only four minutes later another ball over the top saw Youssef Nasser draw Kuwait level, and the teams went into the half time break level.

The result leaves Australia in a precarious position heading into their final Asian Cup Qualifier against Indonesia (in Brisbane on the 3rd of March). The point against leaves Australia sitting second in their group on 8 points, with Kuwait sitting ahead on goal difference, and Oman one point back. As the other game in the group will be Oman v Kuwait, Australia only needs a point to ensure qualification, but even that might be a task.

While recently club-less Craig Moore might have said after the game “if we can’t get a result at home to Indonesia, we don’t deserve to be at the Asian Cup,” Indonesia did manage to hold us to a bore draw in our previous encounter, and the Socceroos will need to be on their game to see off Indonesia at Suncorp Stadium.

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Australia met Italy in Kaiserslautern

Australia met Italy in Kaiserslautern. Kewell was unavailable for the game, entering the stadium on crutches reportedly suffering from an attack of gout and infected blisters (later diagnosed as septic arthritis). The score at half-time was 0-0. Italy went down to 10 men due to the red card (51') given to Marco Materazzi for a two-footed tackle on Mark Bresciano. Otherwise, six yellow cards were issued in total. Almost three minutes into stoppage time, with the score still at 0-0 and Australia being pushed into their own half, a controversial penalty was awarded to Italy when Fabio Grosso fell under a Lucas Neill challenge in the final seconds of the match. Francesco Totti scored from the spot (95') and the game ended immediately with Australia eliminated.

Coach Guus Hiddink officially ended his reign as the coach of the Socceroos following the 1-0 loss to Italy and took the managerial job with Russia. Australian assistant coach Graham Arnold branded the penalty a "joke", to the agreement of several Australian players, including Tim Cahill, who believed Grosso should have been cautioned for diving. Further analysis of the incident in slow motion clearly shows that Fabio Grosso moves his foot into Neill, and still had time to get around him. Australia became the team to go out of a World Cup with the last kick of the ball (in regular time).

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Acceptance into the AFC

Many commentators and fans felt that the only way for Australia to progress was to abandon the Oceania Football Confederation. Football had developed over time to place increasing importance on tournaments rather than friendly matches. This established the Continental championships and their qualifiers as the major source of competitive matches for national teams. This served to starve Australia of potential opponents and resulted in long gaps between fixtures for the national team.

One respected football (soccer) broadcaster and former Socceroos captain (Johnny Warren), expressed his desire for Australia to join Asia. Despite previous attempts to do so, each notoriously ending in failure, a story was leaked from Tokyo in March 2005 suggesting that FIFA had entered into secret discussions with the AFC on this very issue. On 23 March, the AFC Executive Committee made a unanimous decision to invite Australia to join the AFC.

On 17 April, the OFC executive committee unanimously endorsed Australia's proposed move. FIFA approved the move on 30 June, and it took effect on 1 January 2006. Earlier, on 1 December, the AFC Executive Committee announced that Australia will be put into the ASEAN zone. Currently, Australia is an invitee member of ASEAN Football Federation.

Australia was duly entered into the 2007 AFC Asian Cup qualification. On 4 January, Australia was drawn into group D, alongside Bahrain, Lebanon and Kuwait. Lebanon later withdrew due to recent military conflict in the area. Australia's first game as a member of the AFC was on 22 February, a 3-1 win away to Bahrain in the 2007 AFC Asian Cup qualification. They subsequently qualified for the finals on 16 August after defeating Kuwait 2-0.

The World Cup tickets of all matches are now available for sale. Football tickets of all the matches of World Cup are for sale at ticket4football.com, you can buy the Australia World Cup Tickets for its the upcoming matches and World Cup Football tickets of other teams on this website. The website also sell the Champions League tickets.