If it's Friday it must be Tahiti. Australia had played Tahiti the previous November to win a spot at the Intercontinental Cup, but this side looked a lot different to me. Apparently the coach was going for youth, but whether it was coincidence or not he also went for size. The Tahitians were more than Australia's equal physically but we are too far ahead already.
Before the game I saw two Dutch guys on the train, I thought nothing of it but as I was making my way to the stadium they asked me if I was going to the game. Turns out they had arrived in Sydney only hours before from Melbourne and heard that the game was on and decided to go but had no idea where the stadium was. The chattier one, I never did get their names, informed me that he was a PSV fan who had been to the 1996 Olympic qualifying game in Utrecht and seemed intruiged he would see Ned Zelic again (who had put the Netherlands out of the 96 games with the 2 goals he scored that day).
They seemed impressed enough with the stadium but found the turnout slightly amusing, they had asked trepidatiously whether they could get a ticket at the gate and were confused when I laughed. I saw them again after the game had finished (they wanted to sit on the other side behind the Australian bench) and they had managed to get Robbie Slater to sign the programme and asked me where they could buy a Socceroo shirt. I pointed them towards a couple of likely stores and wished them well on their trip which would later take them to Brisbane and on to Alice Springs.
They seemed curious about the game against (probably) New Zealand, so perhaps they will keep an eye out for the result or even stay until then.
Anyway this time I came prepared with pen, paper and watch to make notes and just as well since the crowd was even smaller than the previous game against the Solomons. Even some of the die-hards were absent.
Terry Venables had made wholesale changes to the squad and the result was a general lack of cohesion and there didn't seem to be a great deal of individual determination either. Tahiti for their part, as I mentioned, were much bigger and stronger than the Solomons and would always restrict Australia to a lower score, also Tahiti played everyone back so Australia needed to be a little more inventive in going forward to get past the defence. They weren't terribly impressive ideas-wise and the opening 15 minutes thinking about how wise I was in wearing warmer clothes.
I, along with most others around me, thought Enes was playing crap from the time he tried to shoot for goal with a cute little outside foot shot in the opening minutes. It missed handsomely and it was arguably the best thing Enes did all night. The opening goal took over a quarter of an hour to arrive and it was the captain Aurelio Vidmar who directed a header back across goal inside the far post after being picked out by a long ball from Zelic.
Immediately afterwards the Tahiti goalkeeper was replaced by the 19 year old Tahutini. The goal was probaby the catalyst but Fassain had sustained a leg injury minutes before and that would have been the reason. The following 20 odd minutes were dull, dull, dull. Australia managed to fluff whatever chances they created and while I'm not wanting to disparage the Tahitians I think the the Australians really should have done better. In international football chances are at a premium and one of the prerequisites for a goal is a shot on target. I can launch a ball at 100km/h (I tried it...it was fun) but the trick is to hit it at the net not over it or at the cornerflag.
The next point of interest was a backpass ruling (which inexplicably did not get on the highlights package on SBS-TV that night) in which a Tahitian defender passed the ball ahead from behind the goalkeeper and the goalkeeper picked it up. Actually the ball more or less bounced off the defender, but it came off his foot...there is a question of intent. Anyway an indirect free kick resulted from the right of the goal. I predicted the ball would hit the stadium lights, but surprisingly the shot from Graham Arnold (after Vidmar had rolled it to him) went along the ground and hit one of the many legs between Arnie and the goal. At least it was on target. Things were improving.
Only two minutes later Australia finally scored again. This time Golden Boy Bingley sent a beautiful ball to the feet of Vidmar who had made a run to the goalline on the other side of the goalmouth. The keeper tried to shut Vidmar down but the ball was already heading back across the face of goal where Trimboli just couldn't have missed, even Enes would have scored that one.
Trimboli was getting pretty excited about this scoring business and into first half injury time he scored another, just after an Arnold shot bounced off the crossbar and down for what was a Wembleytor, at least from the German perspective not that of some nobbled linesman. I think it was either this or an offside call that got the linesman his "Your wife's a whore" chant. You have to love football humour don't you.
Back to Trimboli, his injury time goal came from a cross by Craig Moore who had run down the right flank and picked out Trimmers. Trimboli touched it once to control it and another to send the ball rippling into the net. It's a pity the half pretty much ended there because Australia seemed to be getting the hang of this football business.
The majority of spectators, including me, moved to the other end of the field to get a better view of where most of the action was expected to be.
Trajanovski came on for Vidmar during the halftime break and his first contribution was to set up Arnie (who was now captain instead of Vidmar) for a goal. In truth Trajanovski, though having done well to nick the ball off a defender, had some luck in feeding the ball wide to Arnold because there was a small deflection. Without the deflection the ball would have been scooped up by the keeper, but with it it came to Arnie's feet and left the keeper stranded halfway between the goal and Arnie. Graham Arnold stroked the ball past the keeper and the ball beat a defender over the line. There was a brief moment of amusement when the Arnold goal had the scoreboard reading "Australia 3 - Tahiti 1" but eventually someone worked out that they change sides at halftime.
Now it got boring and apart from making Graham Arnold laugh with "There's only one-touch Arnold" there wasn't much to do. Tahiti subbed off Doupere at the 18 minute mark of the second half for Rousseau who had impressed me in the game I saw in Canberra the previous year. He was quite lively up front too, unlike the player he replaced, but Rousseau had basically no midfield support, then again nor did Doupere.
So while Australia was mucking about around the Tahiti penalty box Robbie Hooker found himself with space and time for the shot. He took it, it was on target, but the goalie parried it. I thought it was an excellent stop but fortunately for Australia he could not hold the ball and Golden Boy was on hand to scoop in the ball from inside the 6yard box.
Sadly that's where all the scoring ended. Terry Venables substituted Hooker and Bingley, neither of whom were doing as well as you might expect, with Tapai and Lazaridis who are more attacking players. This happened just as Australia prepared to take a free kick as a result of Vaiho(?) putting his boot into Trimboli's groin.
Lazaridis was the subject of much cheering whenever he got the ball and we even managed to get a wave out of him. Stan put in some nice crosses, for which he was loudly applauded. However as a match this one petered out a little after that. Tahiti got their one and only corner after 77 minutes and 82 minutes in they made a 3rd substitution which I have to chase up...other than that all I have to complain about is that the sausage sizzle guys who were outside the stadium on Wednesday were not there this time, which meant I was forced to consume McDonalds....urgh!