'Come on Aussies Comeon!! ' Off to Germany, Socceroos!!

For the first time in 32 years, and only just the second time in Australian history, the socceroos finally made it into the World Cup finals after overcoming Uruguay in the second leg of the Oceania-South America World Cup qualifier playoff in a match that went right down to the penalty shoot-out.

For us, 2 Singaporeans and 2 Malaysians, it was well worth our time and money heading down to the Champions Bar at Burswood Casino to catch a piece of action cheering for our adopted host nation. When it comes to the soccer, cheering for Australia is sadly probably as close as it gets to feeling any affinity or partisanship towards any team in a World Cup match. I just can't see how Singapore or Malaysia can qualify for the world cup anytime soon. So much for Goal 2010. FAS should just blow the entire Goal 2010 budget on hiring Guus Hiddink as the national coach. He's almost become synonymous to underdog overachievement. If only Fandi was less of a wuss during his younger days, he could have went on to achieve great things with Ajax instead of returning back to Singapore, homesick and ending up playing for Pahang or some other random obscure team. We could have had someone with decent football coaching credentials in Singapore, but no...someone just had to miss the Singaporean food. Ok, then again, if it was really all about the food, it's probably fair enough. Cos' i can't stop thinking about cheap hawker food back home now.

Anyway, back to Aussie-Uruguay match.

The match started with Socceroos 1-0 down from the away fixture at Uruguay a week ago. The first 15 minutes was really jittery for the Socceroos who almost conceded an early goal if not for Schwarzer's reflexes. It was interesting that Hiddink didn't choose to start with Kewell, and it wasn't until the 30+ minute that Kewell was substituted onto the pitch. Boy did that make a difference! At around the 38th minute Kewell ran rampant deep into the Uruguayan defence, did a cheeky backpass and went for a one two, and dribbled into the penalty box to set up a pass for Macro Bresciano (some guy who i've never heard before this match but played really well, managing a good couple of shots on target) to drive it to the back of the net. GOAL!!!
The whole bar went absolutely delirious.

I wouldn't say it was a really redneck crowd down at Champions bar, and they seemed pretty well dressed -which kinda made us feel outta place-, but boy the things that come out of their mouth were absolutely hilarious! It's really funny when you find yourself in the unlikely scenario of being on the same side as the rednecks. Like when a Uruguayan player goes down regardless of whether he was diving (which actually happened pretty often) or really brought down by an Aussie challenge, the whole crowd will start to shout 'U R Gay' as a spoof to the name 'URUGUAY'. And if that wasn't enough, when a certain black and bald Uruguayan player fell down after taking an seemingly innocuous challenge, the cameras focused on him who covered his face in mock pain, only to be caught by the camera peeking at the referee's reaction through his finger slits. That was soooo silly and everyone in the bar was actually more amused by his unaccomplishedl playacting abilities more than the unprofessional act of diving in itself. and so the the 'U- R- GAY' chanting eventually became a full song will the entire bar singing to some impromptu tune composed by one certain smart guy sitting in the front of the screen going 'U-R-Gay, U-R-Gay....U...R...GAyyyy......U-ARE-G-A-Y!!!!!!'


Australia had a couple more chances but simply couldn't find the finishing touch. By the end of the second half, the bedrock of the Uruguay attacking flair and defence, Alvaro Recoba and Pablo Montero respectively were subsituted for some inexplicable reasons. Mark Viduka who captained the Socceroos remained rather tame throughout the entire game. In the end, the match went down to penalties and the Socceroos found the back of the net in all but the fourth penalty shot which was taken by none other than Viduka himself. What a disappointment. Well anyway, the Socceroos won, and the crowd went mad again.

If Guus Hiddink could transform a South Korean team of inexperienced players into World Cup semi-finalists, just imagine what he could achieve with a team consisting of talents like Viduka, Kewell, Emerton, Omerod and Schwarzer who ply their trade week and and week out in the English Premier League or some other European teams. Good on'ya Socceroos!!!! Germany 06, we shall see.