Two goals in five minutes gave Australia a chance to emerge from Group C as one of the participants in the Quarter Finals. The result, 2-1 to Australia, has opened up the 'group of death' for an exciting finish on Wednesday evening.
Yet for 65 minutes it looked anything but an Australian victory. The Germans dominated early and then consolidated for the rest of the time.
Their early sustained pressure generated the first goal in the 9th minute following some nervous defence. An error 30m out saw the ball go to Florian Heller on the right and his pin-point cross found Leonhard Haas who finished well.
The rest of the half was totally without incident, the rare shot from distance not troubling the two goalkeepers. Except that with five minutes left the German keeper Jan Schlosser was involved in a collission with Wayne Shroj and had to be substituted.
At the half-time break Australian coach Les Scheinflug substituted a rather ineffectual Jo Di Iorio with Lucas Pantelis. Di Iorio was a shining light for Australia in their loss to Brazil two nights before.
In the 65th minute of the game disaster struck for Germany. A neat flick from Shane Cansdell-Sherriff freed Shroj down the left. His cross bounced off the chest of defender Thomas Hitzlsperger and into his goal.
This awoke the Australians and after a few minutes further a Cansdell-Sherriff cross from the left was not converted by Jade North when his volley went wide.
Then with 70 minutes gone a free kick on the right was taken by Pantelis and sent low and hard and into the 6-yard box. It bounced off a defender to the Australian captain Mark Byrnes who finished with ease.
Australia had a chance to push their lead further when with around 15 minutes left a challenge in the midfield from Dylan McAllister saw the ball fall to Louis Brain, but his first time effort went just wide of the far post.
The Germans tried hard to get the equaliser pushing as many players forward as possible, but the defence of Adrian Madaschi, Cansdell-Sherrif and Byrnes held firm until the final whistle.
Les Scheinflug stated "we started again like in the first match. We didn't hold the ball well enough. I think it's a lack of international experience and we're trying to rush things and not move the ball around. We had every intention of slowing the game down."
Regards the change at half-time. "They were a little bit vulnerable in the back and naturally in the second half I had to change and put the big fella (McAllister) up front to create problems for them.
"We had chances, but give credit to the Germans - they never gave up. We knew this group is dynamite. There's nothing in there.
"I was confident we'd hang on. With young kids there is always a panic stations one way or another. I told them to get behind the ball and break quickly."