The focus of the World Cup will inevitably be on the big teams, but what about the teams that everyone might forget about, the World Cup underdogs? Everyone wants to see a team do well that isn’t initially expected to go very far. In the 2002 World Cup, we saw South Korea make it all the way to the semifinals under the guidance of Guus Hiddink. Who would have seen that one coming?
Melbourne Victory midfielder James Troisi had an open goal. He then committed perhaps the worst A-League miss of the century in the Melbourne Derby.
Remember those drills you had as a child, where you had to pass the ball through some cones at varying distances? Troisi apparently never mastered that skill.
Remember taking shots at an open goal to improve accuracy? Troisi apparently struggles with that too.
You know how passing to a stationary target is easier than hitting a moving target? Yeah, Troisi never figured that one out either.
The Newcastle Jets and Western Sydney Wanderers played to a 2-2 draw in Australian A-League play today. Newcastle salvaged a point thanks to this outside-of-the-boot curler from 25-year-old Australian Andrew Nabbout in the 68th minute.
While Nabbout has never been capped by Australia, he now has nine goals in 20 A-League appearances this season to go along with six assists. That total makes Nabbout the leading goalscorer among Australians in league play. 33-year-old Brazilian striker Bobo leads all players with 20 goals for Sydney.
Sam Kerr’s 2017 was already the stuff of legend, but that legend just grew following a brace against China on Wednesday. Kerr has now scored in five straight games for Australia, equaling a Matildas record set by Sarah Walsh.
30-year-old German midfielder Daniel Adlung really caught a hold of that one, huh? This rip evened the score for Adelaide United in their A-League match against Central Coast Mariners on Thursday, allowing Ryan Kitto’s 93rd minute strike to constitute the game-winner for the Reds.
Adlung, who represented Germany at the U-21 level, just arrived in Australia back in September after a 12-year professional career in his native country, including lengthy spells with FC Energie Cottbus and 1860 Munich.
And so it’s settled. On November 15, Peru claimed the final spot in the 32-team field for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, bringing us to the final event before the June 14 kick off at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow: the draw to determine the eight groups of four for the finals.
Australia captain, defensive midfielder and rugged bearded hero Mile Jedinak had the game of his life, scoring a hat trick to propel the Socceroos to the 2018 World Cup with a 3-1 defeat of Honduras on Wednesday in Sydney. Jedinak scored on a free kick and two penalty kicks before Honduras’ Alberth Elis scored a consolation goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time. The first leg of the intercontinental playoff was a 0-0 draw in Honduras.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has come through on his promise to make the World Cup bidding process more transparent and open to scrutiny after the fallout following the 2010 vote which saw the 2018 and 2022 World Cups handed to Russia and Qatar.
On June 13, 2018, 211 member federations and the 38-person FIFA council will decide who’ll win the right to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and all of those votes will be open to public viewing.
A brace from Australia’s all-time leading scorer, Tim Cahill, was enough to see the Socceroos narrowly edge Syria 2-1 after extra time, 3-2 on aggregate, in Sydney. Cahill’s header in the 109th minute completed the Aussie turnaround and sent them into the inter-confederation playoff, most likely against Panama or Honduras, at the expense of a spirited Syrian side that pushed them until the very end.