I watched the game on the telly with a few other Melbourne- based supporters at the Charles Dickens pub in Collins Street.
The best thing that can be said about the game truly was the final score. Were we to have come away from a WC first-leg elimination game in Colombia with that scoreline, we'd be thinking about taking Japanese and Korean lessons.
But despite the scoreline being all in football, it was flattering IMHO.
Our penalty award was a bit soft, it could have been given to be sure, but it also could have been brushed aside, or the award could have been an indirect FK for obstruction.
I wonder if the ref would have been so quick with the whistle were the margin of Colombia's lead narrower than three.
But good on Steve C for sending the keeper comprehensively the wrong way. The crowd noise didn't come over to any extent, but I expect there were 45,000 Colombians whistling and trying to put him off.
And good on Chippy for chasing down what he could otherwise have given up as a lost cause so late in the game, only to be as happily surprised as the rest of the watching world when the keeper made such an extravagant ass of himself and gifting our second.
We were outclassed in the first half. We didn't play together to any level of fluidity, except, perversely, in the umpteen passes before we gave the ball away mid-pitch for them to run up the park and score the opener from.
I didn't think we had a midfield general able to settle the play down - it was all a bit rushed and ping-pong.
We were definitely sharper in the second half when Archie came on and clearly troubled the Colombian defenders, and I thought the other changes at the start of the second half - De Amicis and Colos - also worked better.
But 2-3 was a bit of a fortunate scoreline for us, and Colombia should have blanked us.
We had fighting spirit, that's for sure - but Oz teams for decades have had that. We needed a bit more finesse today, and we'll need it when the games lift from being friendlies to the real thing.
The squad on the park on Bogota will manage to get through the Group Oceania phase I'm sure, but I'd not be confident beyond that. Good thing everyone knows we've got additional resources of high quality sitting around elsewhere.
I'm being critical I know. I'm not of the view we were let down by any of the players today - they clearly battled very hard, probably in very difficult circumstances.
But it was the lack of team-play that was most apparent, especially compared to how the Colombians were moving the ball around as a unit.
I thought Petka and Blatsis both had good games, as did Archie when he came on, but I thought Vidmar was less influential than he should have been in that midfield role, and as captain.
It was a horrible twin defensive error that gifted the Colombians the third, and I dunno if Horvat's subsequent hook was FF's way of pointing a finger, but it was amateur stuff. (In fact, I and a collegaue defender in my old-fellows' game last Sunday morning did almost the same thing, but got away with it.)
Play like that in a WC qualifier, and I'll be very nervous.
Have a first-leg scoreline like that in a WC qualifier, and I'll be quietly confident.