Following their failure to seal the
proverbial deal against South Korea on Saturday night, the Socceroos were
banished to Lang Park, a venue on which the code has some history,
to face the in-form Chinese in the second quarter-final of the 2015 Asian Cup.
The hosts were back to a variation of their
default starting eleven, after the player rotations for which Ange Postecoglou
was criticised by anyone and everyone with a platform on teh interwebz. The
finalists of this tournament will play six matches in three weeks in the middle
of the Australian summer, so rotation is essential. A semi-final against Japan
is not an issue – we would most likely have had to beat them to win the Cup
anyway, and it doesn’t matter whether we do it in the semi-finals or the final.
The proof will be in the eating, and one suspects that Postecoglou knows a bit
more about coaching than the randoms who troll his work on t’internet.
The first half was an intriguing but
goalless affair in which both sides tried to scope each other out. Australia
had a whopping seventy-seven percent of the possession, but most of their
scoring opportunities came from set pieces: Mark Bresciano alone had two free
kicks almost headed into the back of the net by Mile Jedinak and Trent
Sainsbury. Mathew Leckie had a strike saved in the twenty-ninth minute and
crossed to Tim Cahill’s head in the thirty-ninth. A few defensive errors were
almost pounced upon by the visitors, although the lads had composed themselves
by the half-hour mark.
In stark contrast to the first two group
matches, in which the Socceroos faced capitalist petrotyrannies (Kuwait and
Oman) who defended as a unit, the men from Red China were hyper-individualistic
in their marking, winning one-on-one duels and meeting each Australian demand
for a goal with a supply of a body to block it. Their centre-forward Wŭ Lĕi was
entrepreneurial in front of goal. The East Was Red
(actually they were in their predominantly white away strips) but the West
seemed readier to score. But from where would the Socceroos get that elusive
first goal?
That question was answered soon after the
break. A Bresciano corner led to a duel in the box in which Cahill out-muscled
his opponent Zhèng Zhì, and the ball spilled back to Ivan Franjic who headed
back to the former Goodison Park man. What followed was a classic goal as
Cahill avoided any worries about the uneven state of the pitch by executing a
bicycle kick – yes, dear readers, a bicycle kick – on the corner of the
six-yard box. Forty-six thousand in the stands and twenty-three million at home
went absolutely mental.
Cue the now-familiar post-goal celebration,
this time performed with such gusto that he knocked the corner flag out of its
moorings. The game began to be played at a faster tempo, as both sides tried
their luck from outside the area. I
gialloverdi hit a purple patch during the few minutes on either side of the
hour mark, in which, among other manoeuvres, Bresciano shot a loose ball over
the bar and Cahill collected a header with his back to goal and turned to shoot
only to be denied by goalkeeper Wáng Dàléi.
The home side’s efforts paid off in the
sixty-fifth minute when Cahill, loitering in the vicinage of the penalty spot,
headed a Jason Davidson cross into the turf and past Wáng. Two goals seemed enough
in theory, but the ‘Roos had to hold off some ferocious Chinese attacking
around the seventy-minute mark. The great man was substituted off to rapturous
applause in the eightieth minute, and the remainder of the match was a frantic
series of moves and counter-moves, with neither team able to alter the margin.
The final whistle sounded and a triumphant
Postecoglou shook hands with his bench. The next stop on the Socceroos’ road to
glory is that spiritual home of Australian soccer, Newcastle, for a Tuesday
night semi-final against our primary nemesis for continental supremacy, Japan
(provided, of course, that the Samurai Blue beat the Emirates in their
quarter-final in Sydney tonight).
Australia 2 (Tim Cahill 49’,
65’) – China
0
Cautions: Mile Jedinak (Aust.) 20’; Zhāng Línpéng
(China) 54’
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