world cup

At any other time, this would have been a marvellous result. Unfortunately today it was not enough. Cahill and Holman gave us a glimmer of hope mid-way through the second half, but in the end we fell short and our tournament is over.

The big question was: would the real Australia turn up and display the grit, determination and talent we know they have. The answer, despite us not getting the result we needed, was a resounding yes.

Serbia defeating Germany has thrown our group wide open. A win for us will see all four teams level on three points. From there, it's anyone's guess as to the final position.

Our tournament got off to the worst possible start. We were thrashed 0-4 by the Germans and Tim Cahill was given an undeserved red card and will miss our next match.

You don't take a lot from friendlies, but it's nice to win. Losing 1-3 is not a disaster for the same reason, but you'd rather not lose like this in your last warm-up match before a big tournament. By all accounts, the USA played well and deserved their win. They're also rated a better side than Denmark, putting our last friendly in perspective.

A good hit out against a good team. Friendlies don't always tell you much, but there's some promising news in the 1-0 win.

Both sides played close to first choice sides for the first half and it finished 0-0 with good commitment from both sides. Fringe players got their chance in the second half. Kennedy bobbed up to score his first goal for Australia off his boot.

A friendly against the Kiwis is normally anything but and this was no exception. However, it was Australia who behaved poorly with a couple of very rash tackles. We also played poorly. New Zealand took a deserved early lead in the first half. We picked up a bit in the second half and probably deserved our equaliser. We then pinched a goal with nothing on the clock to claim an undeserved win.