Post by shelleybeach on Nov 18, 2007 21:56:24 GMT 10
Amongst all the excitement of the euro qualifiers yesterday Australia played Nigeria in a friendly at Craven Cottage.
It was a decent game with a crowd of over 11,000, about 8,000 of which would have been aussies. Australia dominated large parts of the game and had little trouble clearing the ball or getting into Nigeria's half. I thought Beauchamp was really solid and had a very good game, he also got forward to give them something to think about everynow and again. He stood out in our defence. Nicky Carle actually played really well as did Kewell, Wilkshire and Carney. Carney scored a scorcher in the second half from just outside the box for the only goal.
However despite us dominating, the Nigerians actually had the best chances and could have easily been 2 - 0 up had it not been for Schwarzer who made 3 amazing saves including an incredible dive and also a pure reflex fingertip tap over the bar.
We deserved to win but Nigeria could have snuck a draw or even in a win had it not been for Schwarzer. We could definitely improve defensively in the midfield as their chances were mostly from fast breaks through the middle plus we lacked a target man up front as Scott Macdonald could have used some help - somone like Viduka would have been perfect. Still we were ranked 52 compared to their 14? in the world so fifa are useless
It was a decent game with a crowd of over 11,000, about 8,000 of which would have been aussies. Australia dominated large parts of the game and had little trouble clearing the ball or getting into Nigeria's half. I thought Beauchamp was really solid and had a very good game, he also got forward to give them something to think about everynow and again. He stood out in our defence. Nicky Carle actually played really well as did Kewell, Wilkshire and Carney. Carney scored a scorcher in the second half from just outside the box for the only goal.
However despite us dominating, the Nigerians actually had the best chances and could have easily been 2 - 0 up had it not been for Schwarzer who made 3 amazing saves including an incredible dive and also a pure reflex fingertip tap over the bar.
We deserved to win but Nigeria could have snuck a draw or even in a win had it not been for Schwarzer. We could definitely improve defensively in the midfield as their chances were mostly from fast breaks through the middle plus we lacked a target man up front as Scott Macdonald could have used some help - somone like Viduka would have been perfect. Still we were ranked 52 compared to their 14? in the world so fifa are useless