The game really only held any hope for the Hondurans who had to beat Australia and hope for the right result in the other match. As it turned out they also bowed out of the tournament but they certainly won no friends with their performance.
On the other hand the Australian side also could have done so much better. Certainly pride was all that was on offer and it appears that pride runs a poor second to qualification.
The Honduran tactics were the essence of simplicity and like so many simple plans, you can rely on them to work. Essentially the 9 defenders all sent long balls towards the Australian goal and David Suazo ran and ran and ran and ran to get to the ball, head towards goal and evade defenders before shooting accurately. All this was done inside 4 minutes of the kickoff and Honduras led the game before the Australians even had a chance to all touch the ball.
I assume someone had watched the Hondurans on behalf of the Australian team and figured that this tactic might feature prominently in the Honduran gameplan possibly one of the coaching staff. Sigh!
To the credit of the Australians they took what was left of the match by the scruff of the neck and while not appearing to be terribly dangerous they certainly dominated possession and tried very hard to probe for that elusive crack in the Honduras defence. Eventually they found that crack, with the aid of a deflection, and equalised early in the second half.
Somehow the supreme effort of getting back on level terms left the Australians so relieved they failed to pay attention a few minutes later when a free kick was awarded against them just inside the Honduran half. The free kick was taken quickly and the ever alert Suazo got on the end of the kick while the defenders were still trying to set themselves. He held them off for long enough to get a telling shot in. Bam! The Aussies were back to where they where for most of the first half.
The Hondurans still had something to play for, though the other group match went against them, and obviously that hunger and desperation made them put in a supreme effort of their own. However at the regain of the lead their efforts manifested themselves in another way.
It is here where I am in two minds as to what really happened. On the one hand it is possible that, sensing they could more easily win this way, the Hondurans adopted a cynical gameplan and feigned injuries at every turn. The other, less explored, possibility is that the Australians had some garlic cloves at halftime and when they breathed on their opponents the odour was so overwhelming they fell over for minutes at a time.
Whatever the case may be the end effect was that we had the farcical situation of players taking turns writhing on the ground for incidental contact and then returning to the field seconds after having been stretchered off. One of them got yellow carded by the ref for these antics but it didn't really help.
As the game has to stop when the goalkeeper is down it is not surprising that on three occasions in the last 8 minutes of the match he had the trainers on the field checkiing him out for injuries.
The ref is in an impossible situation here. I am sure that had the ref called play on the keeper would have been to his feet in milliseconds, but he cannot afford that risk incase the keeper is truly injured. In any case the crowd booed long and loud until the Hondurans left the field celebrating victory. The crowd then raised a cheer for the Aussies who had played 3 matches and lost them all.
None of them, the team nor the crowd, deserved that.