Australia 13 Oct 2005 01:13 pm
Now it’s Uruguay
After the final round of the South American World Cup qualifiers, it’s defined: Australia will once more play Uruguay for a spot in the Cup finals. Uruguay beat the Socceroos in 2001 (Australia won 1-0 in Melbourne and lost the return match 3-0), and they are confident of repeating the result; Australia, after beating Jamaica 5-0 in a friendly match last week, is “cautiously confident” that it can do better this time.
The matches are set for 12 November in Montevideo and 16 November in Sydney’s Telstra Stadium; Football Federation Australia intends to arrive in Uruguay as late as possible for the first leg (and leave just as quickly) to try to avoid incidents like the ones that happened in 2001, when Uruguaian fans attacked the Australian players outside the stadium before the match.
This is the last time Australia will have to face a South American opponent to get to the World Cup finals: from next year, Australia will join the Asian football federation and will play the qualifiers for that region, competing for one of four spots (and with a chance of facing off a North American team for a fifth spot). While the Asian teams are certainly tougher opponents than most in the Oceania group, Australia probably has a better chance of scoring a spot in the finals through that route than by playing South American teams…
