Subject: Australia vs Croatia

Are our boys ready to take off?
After 3 good games in a row, our boys can tomorrow take off :)
Croatia is a strong team, they were on the World-Cup and came in the 2nd round.
The game tomorrow will be with the best teams. So we have to bring a perfect game to have a chance.
My aim is to bring a strong defense on the field and perhaps get 3-4 chances.

In a few hours, there will be more informations in the Australian Association forum. There will be the set-up and a player portrait too...

I look forward to a interessting game :)

Kewell back post... goal... into 2nd round...

Let's face it though, that Kewell goal wasn't what was most remembered :p.

I don't think we can beat Croatia unless we're really fortunate. We haven't beaten a top team for ages when they are at full strength and usually the best result we get is a draw. So judging from history I think a draw would be an excellent result but we'll probably get beaten. I hope to see a game where we are at least competitive and I'd think an acceptable result would be a 1 or 2 goal defeat.
(edited)

It's not every day a player gets 3 yellow cards. :P

My personal favourite moment of the game is Simunic's tackle on Viduka in the box.

After 3 good games in a row,

I probably wouldn't say this. We should have beaten hellas and only came away with a draw, and destroyed Nippon, and we only won 3:1. Lasts weeks win was a good turn around though.

Croatia can be beaten with a good tactic and a bit of luck, and a draw or loss by 1 goal definitely not off the cards. Good luck for the match

I was there :) :) :)

That was a reasonably good effort. Goes to show that the pressing tactics are getting much weaker now, they only just won 2-1 whereas a season ago that could well have ended up 4-0.

It was not a good game, but I can live with this game.
Our players had more ball posission and played more beautiful then Croatia.
Our problem today was, that our winger got slighlty injured and our striker (Drum) is not jet world-class...
All in all this game shows us, that we can get a draw against top-nations, when everything works well.

Interview with Shane Thompson

Mister Thompson, a 1:2 lose today. Happy with the result?
Of corse not! We want to win, and surely not lose. ut to be honest: We played really good. Our defense was ready and made a big game. Our offense was the problem today...

Did you make a good game Shane Thompson?
No, I didn`t make a good game. I gave an assist, that was all. And then came the injury, this was surely bad for me too.

Where is Australia? On the way up or on the way down?
It`s not the time to answer this. We should wait 2-3 more games. The last few games were ok, not great. They were ok. So let`s see...

Is the World-Cup a realistic aim for the next season?
We saw the U-26 games, there we made strong games. So we have a future. To come to a World-Cup it needs a strong team. We can get this. Actuelly it would be hard, thats clear...

Thanks and good luck in the next games!