Australia 2 – 2 South Africa

It’s been hard to find much information on this international friendly, and harder still to find photos, but from the sounds of it Australia didn’t have a bad game. Obviously we struggled in the second half after Verbeek changed half the squad, but that’s pretty much par for the course in friendlies, and it’s good to see some lesser-known players getting a run out.

Australia’s goals were scored by Mile Sterjovski, who chipped the oncoming South African keeper after receiving a lobbed ball over the defence from Grella, and Josh Kennedy with a header from a Bresciano free kick; which means that Scott McDonald still hasn’t hit the goalscoring form we’d all love him to for Australia. The first-half lineup sounds pretty strong:

—————Schwarzer—————–
Wilkshire – Neill – Coyne – Chipperfield
———Grella——-Culina?————-
–Sterjovski—————–Bresciano–
———McDonald—Kennedy———–

I haven’t been able to tell who the other midfielder is – Culina is my best guess, but I have no evidence. Anyhow, at half time Neill was replaced by Milligan, Chipperfield by Carney and McDonald by Brett Holman. At this point South Africa started to make a comeback. Later in the second half, Grella was replaced by Valeri and Sterjovski by the newcomer, Hull City winger Richard Garcia. Eventually, Bruce Djite replaced Kennedy, so that our final lineup looked something like this:

—————Schwarzer——————
Wilkshire — Milligan — Coyne — Carney
———Valeri——–Culina?————-
–Garcia———————–Bresciano–
———-Holman——Djite—————

Without seeing the match I can’t exactly give a qualified opinion on how we played, but I think it’s good for all of these players to get some match time for the national team in the buildup to our qualifiers coming up, especially since Verbeek hasn’t sounded all that impressed with the A-league thus far.

Myself, I would have liked to see Spiranovic play; I think he earned it at the Olympics.

Anyone have any thoughts on the friendly or the upcoming qualifying group?

[edit] Daniel from the A-league Offside has posted a video of the highlights on his review of the match if you’re interested.