australia

From the perspective of results, this was the perfect start for Australia. There's still work to do, not least managing the expectations of supporters, but you'd take this any day.

You can't always read too much into a friendly, but I think we can say that Australia is going to struggle at the Asian Cup.

The Sydney derby has become one of the great sporting highlights in Sydney. This was just the seventh one ever, but it was an absolute cracker (esp. if you're a Sydney FC fan).

An uninspiring match. Australia probably had the better of it, but were wasteful in the heat and humidity. It was nice to keep a clean sheet, but you can't win matches (our tournaments) if you can't score. Still more to do.

Australia broke an almost year-long drought with a scrappy 3-2 win over Saudi Arabia. It was a bit of an odd match. We got off to a flyer, up 2-0 after just six minutes. We improved in some areas, but dropped off in others. Saudi Arabia made a game of it, fighting back to 2-1 and 3-2, but we held on. Our 'keeper can consider himself lucky he wasn't sent off. A penalty was given which suggested a red card, not a yellow card to me. Still plenty more to do, but a win will help the confidence.

Postecoglou continues to experiment and try new players and combinations. It's important to re-build, but it would be nice to win a game, given the Asian Cup is only a few months away. Belgium, ranked 5th in the world, were too strong and ran out comfortable winners. We struggled on the attack, especially when Bresciano and Cahill went off. Defensively we seem to have more options than in attack. Our best defence should do reasonably well in the Asian Cup, but we need some goal scorers if we're going to progress.

Our third and final match played out as many would have expected before the tournament. It was always going to be difficult to score without Cahill and we lacked some of the energy and verve of our first two matches. In the end Spain won comfortably.

This game will probably remembered as one of the all-time World Cup classics. Ultimately though, for Australians, we'll look back at one that got away. The margins of error were tiny, but we were on the wrong end of them.

The new look Socceroos battled bravely, but in the end their inexperience cost them dearly. A 1-3 loss pretty much confirms we won't get out of the group stage (not that there was much chance of that anyway). We fought back from a poor start and with a little more luck might have salvaged a draw, but in the end were left lamenting what might have been.

There has been some upheaval in the Socceroos since our last match. Osieck is gone and Postecoglou is in the hot seat. A fresh approach has been promised and a rebuilding of the Socceroos for the World Cup finals and the Asian Cup (and even beyond). There has been a lot of debate about who should be captain, with Neill retaining the job for this match. A few older players have been dropped and legendary goalkeeper, Schwarzer, announcing his retirement and some younger players have been given their chance.