DOHA: The Socceroos previewed their first match in 567 days with a simple message: “We’re back.”
It took just 55 seconds for the Australians to start proving it.
After the coronavirus pandemic forced a 19-month delay in their World Cup Asian qualifying campaign, it took less than a minute for Mathew Leckie to head in the opening goal of a 3-0 win over Kuwait on a sweltering Thursday night in Kuwait City.
Jackson Irvine extended Australia’s lead midway through the first half, firing home the rebound after Martin Boyle had seen his penalty saved by Sulaiman Abdulghafoor.
Eintracht Frankfurt’s Adjin Hrustic netted the third with a free kick in the 66th minute as Australia sealed a fifth win in five games.
Australia coach Graham Arnold assembled a squad of players from more than a dozen leagues around the world for their first international match since November 2019, but said they settled quickly into the familiar pattern of being with the Socceroos.
“I thought the energy was great,” Arnold said. “It only takes a day to reconnect. They proved that tonight. They played a very good game should make the country proud.”
Australia comfortably lead the Group ‘B’ standings with 15 points followed by Kuwait and Jordan on 10 each and with three games remaining and can seal their place in the third round of qualification with wins over Taiwan and Nepal next week.
Jordan did not play on Thursday while Nepal beat Taiwan 2-0.
Only the eight group winners in the second round of preliminaries are guaranteed to advance to the next phase, which starts in September, alongside the four runners-up with the best records.
Iran, after losing its previous two games in Group ‘C’, beat Hong Kong 3-1 to keep alive their chances of a third successive World Cup appearance.
Goals from Ali Gholizadeh, Vahid Amiri and Karim Ansarifard secured the three points to keep Iran in third spot on nine points, two behind second-placed Iraq who did not play on Thursday.
Helio Sousa’s Bahrain, who are hoping to qualify for the tournament proper for the first time in their history, moved a point clear at the top by thrashing Cambodia 8-0.
Iran had beaten Hong Kong 2-0 in their opening match in September 2019 before thrashing Cambodia 14-0 but suffered shock back-to-back defeats against Iraq and Bahrain, leaving them with little scope for error in their remaining matches.
Midfielder Gholizadeh put Iran ahead from from the tightest of angles after dribbling his way into the box in the 23rd minute before Amiri doubled the lead with a deflected shot 16 minutes into the second half. Ansarifard’s close range effort put the result beyond doubt.
An 85th minute goal by Cheng Siu Kwang came as little consolation for Hong Kong for whom it was their third defeat in six matches.
Bahrain, who narrowly missed out qualifying for the tournament in 2006 and 2010 when they lost in the inter-continental playoffs, led 2-0 at the break on Thursday before slamming in six goals in the second half at the Bahrain National Stadium in Riffa.
Three of their players — Kamil al-Aswad, Ali Madan and Ismaeel Hassan — scored twice in the match, while Mohamed al-Romaihi and Jassim al-Shaikh accounted for the other two goals.
In Group ‘G’, a brace each by Fabio de Lima and Ali Mabkhout saw the United Arab Emirates thrash Malaysia 4-0 at the Zabeel Stadium in Dubai.
Mabkhout became the second-highest active goalscorer in international football, above Lionel Messi. The striker now has 73 goals for his country, two more than Messi has scored so far with Argentina and behind only Cristiano Ronaldo’s 103 goals for Portugal. Ali Daei of Iran is the all-time leading international scorer with 109 goals.
“We made a strong return to qualification after a long break,” UAE coach Bert Van Marwijk said. “We have to keep performing in the same way to achieve our goal of reaching the next stage.”
The UAE pulled level with Malaysia on nine points, two points behind leaders Vietnam, and their hopes of qualifying were boosted by Thailand’s 2-2 draw with already-eliminated Indonesia.
That result also moves Akira Nishino’s team onto nine points, although the Thais have played one game more than the other teams in the group.
Singapore’s hopes in Group ‘D’ suffered a serious blow when they shipped three goals in the opening 30 minutes against Palestine, with Tamer Seyam scoring twice from the penalty spot as the west Asians eventually ran out 4-0 winners.
World Cup hosts Qatar, playing in the qualifiers as they double up as preliminaries for the 2023 Asian Cup, moved seven points clear of Oman at the top of Group ‘E’ with a 1-0 win over India thanks to a first-half goal from Abdulaziz Hatem.
Qatar’s results will not be considered for World Cup qualification though as they don’t need to qualify for the tournament being the hosts.
Also in Group ‘E’, Bangladesh and Afghanistan played out a 1-1 draw in Doha that dented both teams’ chances of making the cut.
The competition began in 2019 but the Covid-19 pandemic left the schedule in disarray before it resumed last week when Japan confirmed their spot in the third round by thrashing minnows Myanmar.
Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2021