Through to the quarter finals

After a week from hell, we are finally through to the quarter finals with a quite flattering 4-0 victory over hosts Thailand. Although we played better, the 4-0 scoreline is a bit misleading. After leading 1-0 at halftime, Thailand dominated the early periods of the second half. Viduka then showed his class, scoring against the run of play. From then, Thailand had nothing, they got tired, lost momentum, and two more goals were added. Defence was much better, but was still poor, as we struggled to get the ball out of our half, until Viduka’s goal. Milligan and Beauchamp were great, stepping up to the plate at a crucial game such as this. Its going to be difficult to drop one of them for Lucas Neill against Japan. There is still work to be done, but this is a start. The attack wasn’t bad, but it had more potential. Japan aren’t going to be easy beats, and, although we have improved a lot, these areas need to be fine tuned to beat a red-hot and vengeful Japan in Hanoi. The re-match from Kaiserlautern, should be an epic.