Australia Is Going To The World Cup!

[peewee]

Fiiiinally! Okay so if you're not Australian you probably don't care, but I don't care about your team so nerrr!

It's been 32 years since we last qualified for the World Cup. Our excuse is that we sucked lol. I can almost hear JW saying all it took was a Dutch coach ehehe. It's kinda of true though cos we've been stuck with the same Australian ex-players for so long and the team just needed a shake-up for once. Australian football sorta got left out on the line for too long. Finally it's been taken down and put through a vigorous wash again too. The new local competition has only just begun and it already looks sooo much better than the old comp.

Anyway so the final result was 1-0 to Australia after regular and extra time and 4-2 in penalties to Australia. Uruguay beat us in Montevideo a few days ago 1-0. So we needed to win 2-0. It was pretty nerve-racking as goals are worth double for the visiting team and the game was in Sydney.

Australia isn't exactly a high profile team. The captain is Mark Viduka who has played in England for a few years. Leeds first and he's with Middlesbrough now I think. Arrrgh he had a shocker of a game and he missed one of the penalties too. Our keeper is awful and painful to watch lol. He had a bad game and he seems to just stay on his line all the time. He drops the ball and one time the ball bounced off his chest...omg. The star for me was Harry Kewell (who plays for Liverpool) who really stepped up. He had a fantastic game.

So finally the Oceania group gets a representative in the World Cup haha. It's not exactly the toughest battle to the top of the group with the Soloman Islands finishing second. However, only 0.5 teams can qualify from the Oceania group...yes that's right, not even one has to lol. So we had to play off against the 5th in the South American group. It's a bit of a worry haha but we have promise anyway.

[Jaz]

yes, the last time when they were going to a world cup (1974), the world cup was in Germany like now lol

Congratulation Australia!

[Joey (Webmaster)]

As if you lot down under really cared about football anyway no actually congratulations, lets hope thet get drawn with England in the opening groups! Your going down!

[Jan Willem]

CONGRATULATIONS AUSTRALIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!
nerve-racking was the right word..it was a terrible game with very tough play..it looked liked they forgot they were playing football and not rugby
Indeed they needed someone with some (top- in this case) experience to renew the team, but the players are all australian so they did it themselves. Was Kewell the one with the longer hair tied up? He is a schwalbe-master..he should play in germany hehe
Brad Emerton is an (ex-?)Feyenoord player, a dutch top football club (Rotterdam).
Now if Trinidad&Tobago beat Bahrein tonight, there will be 4 dutch coaches in the tournament: Marco van Basten with the Netherlands, Guus Hiddink with Australia, Dick Advocaat with South-Corea and Leo Beenhakker with Trinidad&Tobago!! that would rock

@Joey: you know who to fear ey! Its the number 2 on the fifa list

[peewee]

Haha no let's hope they get the easiest possible draw and England draw Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, France, Netherlands, you get the idea haha, and Australia somehow win their first round and England are booted are straight away woohoo then we can say we are better no matter how naive the statement.

Actually football (or s0ccer) is the most played sport here. I played most of my life and I guess most kids do. I think it's the easiest and best option for a sport where parents can throw their kids into a club regardless of their size, speed, coordination, skill and also not have to worry too much about injuries, just the odd bruise when they're young. Cricket is probably the most popular sport for kids to play in the backyard. And in the schoolyard it's probably various other football codes like rugby, league or afl.

I guess the country has a lot of success in other sports and so the lack of success in football has decreased the number of fans. Cricket, for example, is always so popular because Australia have been the best team in the world for a long time now. England finally gave them a kick in the guts and put up a fight and won a series against them. For me this was actually a good thing and I think the international game is more interesting now. Australia has the best pace bowler and best spinner in the world without a doubt and that's really what has been responsible for the dominance and once they retire it could change. Our other popular international team sport is Rugby, but we're certainly slipping there and we're certainly not dominant there but we have been getting better and better and finally got to be the best at it for a short time and that rakes in the fans. The other big sports here are AFL and Rugby League but AFL isn't played internationally and the Australian Rugby League competition is better than the international games. It's like we got a little obsessed with it and practised a lot while the other countries went wooah this isn't our major sport so we don't bother with it that much, so we're a little bit behind.

There's a lot to choose from and the local success tends to dictate the allegience of fans. In two of the states, Queensland and New South Wales, Rugby League has been the big sport and in Victoria and the other states it's been AFL. Then a team from Victoria went and won the Rugby League competition and a team from Queensland went and won the AFL competition, and those states gained more interest in those other sports.

Anyway baaah I'm bored and I babble to myself lol.

[peewee]

Haha yes the Dutch seem to be doing quite well in the coaching dept. and I saw they've pushed up to be ranked no.2 nowdays too.

Yes Emerton plays for that team, it just doesn't stick in my head when I read it cos it's not English and I just go wooah too many odd mixtures of letters to remember haha. He's been around for a looong time and used to captain Australia for a while.

And yep Harry Kewell was the one with the Samurai hair hehe. That's certainly the best game I've seen him play for Australia. Was like when he was first doing magical things for Leeds in the Premier League.

Oh and how could I forget about all the fouls. Omg it was ridiculous. Uruguay seem to play dirty and I was yelling at the screen every time they fouled but soon realised there wasn't an innocent player on the field haha. It was crazy. I remember when they said there had been 35 fouls so far and it was like nowhere near the end of even regular time. I was just waiting for a red to come out. Something like nine yellow cards wasn't it? So were just careless challenges, but sooo many were petty, stupid, obvious pushes.

[Vicious]

there was something going on with this match, but I can't remember exactly what it was.

Either Uruguay had their previous match only 2 days before this match, and they were too tired

Or Uruguay's next match is 2 days later, and their plane was somehow cancelled/delayed

anyway, Uruguay wanted to postpone the match, but Australia refused because their plane was on time. Hmm, this suggests that something is wrong with my memory, so you will have to help me out Peetwee

[Italo (Mod)]

YAY for Australia then.. Too bad they will loose.

[Jumperjack]

Does Australia have a new God now? Guus Hiddink became a sort of saint in South-Korea after the last world cup, and tourists from South-Korea came to his native village : Varseveld.
So if you see Varseveld in an Australian travel guide now, you know why that is.

[Jan Willem]

The team from Uruguay were 3 hours earlier in Australia than the aussies themselves, but the latter flew in a private jet with jacuzzis and even a dutch masseur on board, while the uruguyanes (?) flew economy class..As far as i know this is their own fault.
oh and its spelled Varsseveld, in de Achterhoek. There?s a big discotheque there but i?ve never been there though