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Advantage Socceroos!


Yes, its advantage Soccerooos as the Socceroos have their fate in their own hands going into the last game against Croatia. It was a very good composed display against Brazil who everybody expected to win anyway and the good news is that none of the players on one yellow card got another one and so all players will be available for selection come Friday's game. The same cannot be said of Croatia though with Robert Kovac now suspended and they will miss his influence in defence.
Croatia were a shadow of the team that played Brazil and if they play like that against the Socceroos then we would be in the second round before we know it. Its going to be very important for the Socceroos not to play for a draw and in the event of a one goal lead it will be better to try and avoid defending that slender lead but continue to attack. Friday morning could see another whole new chapter written in the history of Australian football.
Mathematically Japan can still qualify for the second round but they would need to beat Brazil by a sizeable margin and then hope that either Croatia hold Australia or Croatia narrowly beat Australia. I just can't see that happening.
Although France only managed a draw against S Korea, I think they will be able to beat Togo in their last match and advance to the second round. You would expect a team like France to be able to kill off the game especially having scored so early but S Korea to their credit finished strongly and now a win against the Swiss will see them through to the next round.
Turning to yesterday's action it was good to see Africa's first win in the form of Ghana beating the Czech Republic. This is a game I didn’t expect Ghana to come up with anything especially given the way the Czech dismantled the USA but in the end Ghana could have won by a bigger margin had it not been for the brilliance of Peter Cech. For a moment I thought that Ghana would regret the missed penalty but then they sealed the game with a spectacular goal. Its very important that Ghana keeps its feet to the ground because nothing has been won yet and USA are going to give them a very good game because they also can still qualify for the second round.
And talking about the US/Italy game, it was good to see that referee took the bold decision and dished out the red cards when they were supposed to be given.

victor
That referee in the USA v Italy match should have awarded two penalties. Maybe too difficult for these officials to get everything right.
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