(U-20 WC) Brazil 3-1 Australia

The Young Socceroos bowed out of the FIFA Under 20 World Cup to the A Seleção (Brazil U-20) after an Aaron Mooy freekick was cancelled out by three Brazilian efforts. However, despite the scoreline, the Australian’s matched the Brazilians for much of the game, and were unlucky not to score a number of times.

Australia started well, with a half chance in the 1st minute, and this coming from a vastly changed Socceroos lineup. However Danning was still in the line up, so Australia still had an attacking threat, and their passing was looking vastly improved from the sloppy play against the Czechs. Brazil then almost scored, with a ball put through across an empty goal, but no Brazilians were close enough to put it in. They then almost scored in the 7th minute, when a Brazilian corner was poorly cleared, but the South Americans couldn’t finish it off. However, despite the many chances from Brazil, the Socceroos were matching them in attack, with many chances throughout the first period of play.

Then, in the 14th minute, a goalkeeping error from the Brazilian Rafael saw an Aaron Mooy freekick bumbled into the back of the net. The Aussies almost doubled their lead a minute later, with Danning hitting the post. However Brazil immediately countered, and were through on goal in the 20th, but they put it wide. Then, in the 33rd minute, the inevitable happened, with striker Ciro putting the ball past Redmayne. Now while it was an amazing goal, the following goal celebration was stupidly out of proportion, the way he acted you would have think he’d won the World Cup. Also, Ciro seriously needs a haircut (see above picture).

So the teams went into halftime at 1 all, and Australia still had a chance of making it through to the next round. The second half started slowly, and in the 55th Tommy Oar was substituted for Sean Rooney. A minute later Ciro just put a ball over, but then another freekick from Mooy, in a similar position almost put Australia up, with another fumble from the keeper, but he recovered. However, then in the 63rd, apparent Manchester United target Douglas Costa scored, and put Australia’s chances of progression to bed. After his goal Australia started to unravel, with some very poor passing, and then in 81st minute an amazing curling goal from Henrique finished it off.

Melbourne Victories Nathan Elasi came on an caused trouble, with numerous attacking runs, but it wasn’t enough for the Socceroos, and they with the final whistle left the tournament empty handed.

While they didn’t manage any points from the three games, it wasn’t all negative for the Young Socceroos. Craig Foster pointed out on The World Game that we managed to ‘play football’ with the other teams, which is a good sign, and it shows our youth is developing. In the future I’ll put a full wrap up of the game and an analysis of the overall performance, but I thought Danning and Bouzanis looked promising, as did McGowan and Ben Kantarovski.