Written by Thomas Esamie. For more details see credits.
| This was a Friendly match. | ||||
| Played : February 6 | Venue : Estadio Ciudad de Malaga, Malaga, Spain | |||
| Australia Mark Schwarzer (Adam Federici 46), Lucas Neill (Rhys Williams 57), Luke Wilkshire (Ryan McGowan 52), Michael Zullo, James Holland, Robbie Kruse, Robert Cornthwaite, Brett Holman, Matt McKay (Nikita Rukavytsya 67), Alex Brosque (Matthew Leckie 73), Marco Bresciano (Mark Milligan 80) Goals : Wilkshire 45pk, Cornthwaite 54 |
2 | - | 3 | Romania Costel Pantilimon, Razvan Rat (Stefan Radu 46), Gabriel Tamas, Alexandru Bourceanu (Costin Lazar 57), Vlad Chiriches, Gheorghe Grozav (Marius Alexe 63), Bogdan Stancu, Cristian Tanase (Alexandru Maxim 72), Gabriel Torje (Aurelian Chitu 90), Dorin Goian (Srdjan Luchin 84), Mihai Pintilii Goals : Tanase 35, Stancu 76, Torje 84 |
| Referee : Carlos Velasco Carballo (Spain) Linesmen : Roberto Alonso Fernandez, Juan Carlos Yuste Jimenez (both Spain) Attendance : 200 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Victor Piturca (Romania) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| On a night when Japan surprisingly lost to Jordan Austalia really needed to win to take the initiative in the group and assume some sort of authority ahead of the match against runaway leaders Japan (who are now not only good but looking to prove a point). Sadly despite the late flurry pushing for the win Australia were in real danger of losing this match and did well to draw. A 1-3-1 record is the kind of performance that makes you think maybe the playoff against South America wasn't so bad. This was a World Cup Qualifying match. | ||||
| Played : March 26 | Venue : Stadium Australia, Olympic Park, Sydney | |||
| Australia Mark Schwarzer, Tim Cahill, Luke Wilkshire, Robbie Kruse (Archie Thompson 68), Brett Holman, Mile Jedinak, James Holland (Mark Bresciano 53 (Tommy Oar 77)), Matt McKay, Robert Cornthwaite, Alex Brosque, Michael Thwaite Goals : Cahill 52, Holman 85 |
2 | - | 2 | Oman Ali Al Habsi, Mohammed Saleh Ali Al-Musalami, Raed Saleh, Eid Al-Farsi (Jaber Al Owaisi 84), Abdul Aziz, Qasim Said (Ali Hilal 90), Saad Al Mukhaini, Ahmed Mubarak, Abdul Sallam Al Mukhaini, Hassan Al Gheilani, Amad Al Hosni (Ismail Al-Ajmi 68) Goals : Aziz 7, Jedinak 49og |
| Referee : Ravshan Irmatov (Uzbekistan) Linesmen : Abdukhamidullo Rasulov (Uzbekistan), Bakhadyr Kochkarov (Kyrgyzstan) Attendance : 34603 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Paul Le Guen (Oman) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| In this match Takashi Inui is listed as the number 8 for the match but when the number 8 came on to replace Number 9 Okazaki he bore the name Kiyotaki on the shirt, though listed as number 33. The AFC agrees with us. This was a World Cup Qualifying match. | ||||
| Played : June 4 | Venue : Saitama Stadium 2002, Saitama | |||
| Japan Eiji Kawashimi, Yuto Nagatomo, Yashuhito Endo, Shinji Okazaki (Hiroshi Kiyotake 87), Ryoichi Maeda (Yuzo Kurihara 79), Makoto Hasebe, Atsuto Uchida (Mike Havenaar 84), Shinji Kagawa, Yasuyuki Konno, Keisuke Honda, Maya Yoshida Goal : Honda 90pk |
1 | - | 1 | Australia Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Sasa Ognenovski, Luke Wilkshire, Tommy Oar, Mark Milligan, Mark Bresciano, Brett Holman (Dario Vidosic 72), Robbie Kruse (Archie Thompson 90), Tim Cahill, Matthew McKay Goal : Oar 82 |
| Referee : Nawaf Shukralla (Bahrain) Linesmen : Yaser Khalil Ebrahim Abdulla Tulefat, Ebrahim Mubarak Sabt Moosa Saleh (both Bahrain) Attendance : 62172 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Alberto Zaccharoni (Japan) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| Needing 2 wins from their last two games to be assured of second place in the table and the guaranteed World Cup berth that goes with it. This game went quite well in that regard. This was a World Cup Qualifying match. | ||||
| Played : June 11 | Venue : Docklands Stadium, Melbourne, Australia | |||
| Australia Mark Schwarzer, Mark Milligan, Lucas Neill, Sasa Ognenovski, Mark Bresciano, Tommy Oar (Archie Thompson 60), Robbie Kruse (Dario Vidosic 86), Tim Cahill, Brett Holman (Tom Rogic 79), Luke Wilkshire, Matthew McKay Goals : Bresciano 15, Cahill 61, Kruse 76, Neill 84 |
4 | - | 0 | Jordan Amer Shafi Mahmoud Sabbah (Ahmed Abdel-Sattar Nawwas 88), Mohammad Mustafa Hassan Ali, Shadi Nadmi Abu Hash'hash, Basem Fat'hi Omar Othman, Anas Walid Khaled Bani Yaseen, Saeed Hassan Murjan, Amer Deeb Mohammad Khalil (Yaseen Anas Al-Bakhit 67), Khalil Zaid Bani Attiah, Adnan Suleiman Hassan Adous, Odai Yusuf Ismaeel Al-Saify (Hamza Ali Khaled Al-Dardour 67), Ahmad Hayel Ibrahim |
| Referee : Abdul Malik Abdul Bashir (Singapore) Linesmen : Tang Yew Mun (Deng Yaomin), Jeffrey Goh (all Singapore) Attendance : 43785 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Adnan Hamad (Jordan) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| In front of a full house at the same venue Australia famously qualified 8 years ago Iraq, having played in front of 1100 spectators (an ambitious figure in itself) in their previous match against Japan, faced a much different atmosphere. But as they say there's nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose. So 11 men with nothing to lose... As it turned out Australia could have afforded a heavy loss in this match as Jordan beat Oman hours later. This was a World Cup Qualifying match. | ||||
| Played : June 18 | Venue : Stadium Australia, Olympic Park, Sydney | |||
| Australia Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Mark Milligan, Sasa Ognenovski, Luke Wilkshire, Tommy Oar, Brett Holman (Tom Rogic 60), Matthew McKay, Mark Bresciano, Tim Cahill (Joshua Kennedy 77), Robbie Kruse (Archie Thompson 78) Goal : Kennedy 83 |
1 | - | 0 | Iraq Noor Sabri Abbas Hassan Al-Bairawi, Ahmad Ibrahim Khalaf, Ali Bahjat Fadhil, Khaldoun Ibrahim Mohammed, Ali Adnan Kadhim Al-Tameemi, Dhurgham Ismail Dawood Al-Quraishi (Halgurd Mulla Mohammed Taher Zebari 65), Waleed Salem Al-Lami, Saif Salman Hashim Al-Mohammadawi (Osama Ali Mohammed 78), Humam Tariq Faraj Na'oush (Hammadi Ahmad Abdullah 74), Saad Abdul-Amir Al-Zirjawi, Mohannad Abdul-Raheem Karrar |
| Referee : Faghani Alireza (Iran) Linesmen : Hassan Kamranifar, Reza Sokhandan (both Iran) Attendance : 80523 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Vladimir Petrovic (Iraq) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| Australia was invited to take part in the 5th East Asian Football Federations East Asian Cup and thanks to their efforts in late 2012 they qualified for the final tournament to be held in South Korea. Here they met the home team first up led by legend Hong Myung Bo in his first match as head coach of the senior side but with numerous players from his Olympic side. Australia were fielding a sub-strength side too, Galekovic shining as man of the match impersonating a brick wall. This was an East Asian Cup match. | ||||
| Played : July 20 | Venue : Seoul World Cup Stadium, Seoul, South Korea | |||
| South Korea Sung Ryong Jung, Chang Soo Kim, Young Gwon Kim, Jeong Ho Hong, Dae Sung Ha, Myung Joo Lee, Il Lok Yun (Ki Hun Yeom 59), Seung Ki Lee, Yo Han Ko (Young Cheol Cho 71), Jin Su Kim, Dong Sub Kim (Shin Wook Kim 81) |
0 | - | 0 | Australia Eugene Galekovic, Michael Thwaite, Ryan McGowan, Mark Milligan (Erik Paartalu 48), Archie Thompson, Dario Vidosic (Mitch Nichols 75), Jade North, Ruben Zadkovich, Matthew McKay, Mitchell Duke (Tomi Juric 89), Ivan Franjic |
| Referee : Yuichi Nishimura (Japan) Linesmen : Otsuka Haruhiro (Japan), Zheng Weixiang (China) Attendance : 31571 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Hong Myung Bo (South Korea) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| In this match Australia did remarkably well to snatch parity from a defeat. If only briefly. This was an East Asian Cup match. | ||||
| Played : July 25 | Venue : Hwaseong Stadium, Seoul, South Korea | |||
| Australia Eugene Galekovic, Michael Thwaite, Ryan McGowan, Mark Milligan, Archie Thompson (Tomi Juric 75), Dario Vidosic (Mitch Nichols 56), Jade North, Ruben Zadkovich, Matthew McKay (Craig Goodwin 87), Mitchell Duke, Ivan Franjic Goals : Duke 75, Juric 78 |
2 | - | 3 | Japan Shuichi Gonda, Ryota Moriwaki, Yuhei Tokunaga, Hiroki Yamada, Hideto Takahashi, Yuya Osako, Daisuke Suzuki, Takahiro Ogihara (Hotaru Yamaguchi 61), Manabu Saito (Masato Kudo 73), Yohei Toyoda, Kazuhiko Chiba (Yuzo Kurihara 81) Goals : Saito 25, Osako 55, 79 |
| Referee : TAN HAI (China) Linesmen : ZHENG WEIXIANG (China), JUNG HAESANG (South Korea) Attendance : 1458 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Alberto Zaccharoni (Japan) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| Japan win the tounament and Australia finish stone cold last. Obviously not a high priority tournament and many players unavailable which lends itself to some experimentation... still... China? This was an East Asian Cup match. | ||||
| Played : July 28 | Venue : Jamsil Olympic Stadium, Seoul, South Korea | |||
| Australia Mark Birighitti, Ryan McGowan, Robert Cornthwaite, Craig Goodwin, Matthew McKay (Connor Pain 63), Mitchell Duke, Aaron Mooy, Joshua Brillante, Erik Paartalu, Mitch Nichols (Adam Taggart 70), Tomi Juric (Archie Thompson 80) Goals : Mooy 29, Taggart 82, Duke 90 |
3 | - | 4 | China Yang ZHI, Sun XIANG, Cui PENG (Liu JIANYE 46), Zheng ZHI, Sun KE, Wu XI, Zhang LINPENG, Yang HAO (She KE 82), Wu LEI, Zhang XIZHE, Yu DABAO (Yang XU 60) Goals : Yu DABAO 4, Sun KE 55, Yang XU 79, Wu LEI 81 |
| Referee : Kim Dongjin (South Korea) Linesmen : Jung Haesang (South Korea), Otsuka Haruhiro (Japan) Attendance : 10526 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Fu Bo (caretaker) (China) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| In an effort to not only become used to the playing conditions and crowds this friendly served as a useful warmup for the logistical side of things when the Aussies would return in a few months time. This was an friendly match. | ||||
| Played : September 7 | Venue : Estadio Nacional Mane Garrincha Stadium, Brasilia | |||
| Brazil Julio Cesar Soares de Espindola, Thiago Emiliano da Silva, David Luiz Moreira Marinho (Dante Bonfim Costa Santos 61), Marcelo Vieira da Silva Junior (Maxwell Scherrer Cabelino Andrade 46), Neymar da Silva Santos Junior, Maicon Douglas Sisenando (Marcos Luis Rocha Aquino 77), Ramires Santos do Nascimento, Luiz Gustavo Dias, Jose Paulo Bezerra Maciel Junior (Anderson Hernandes de Carvalho Viana Lima 62), Bernard Anicio Caldeira Duarte (Lucas Rodrigues Moura da Silva 61), Joao Alves de Assis Silva (Alexandre Rodrigues da Silva 67) Goals : Jo 8, 34, Neymar 36, Ramires 58, Alexandre Pato 73, Luiz Gustavo 84 |
6 | - | 0 | Australia Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Sasa Ognenovski, Joshua Kennedy (Mitchell Duke 79), Robbie Kruse, Tommy Oar (Archie Thompson 59), Brett Holman (Tom Rogic 71), Mile Jedinak (Mark Milligan 64), Matt McKay, Ryan McGowan, Marco Bresciano |
| Referee : Enrique Caceres (Paraguay) Linesmen : Milciades Saldivar, Juan Zorrilla (Paraguay) Attendance : 40996 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Luiz Felipe Scolari (Brazil) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| This match was Holger Osieck's last as coach of the Socceroos as successive 6-0 defeats a) don't look good and b) rarely have much of an upside for the coach to point at. The FFA terminated Holger's contract with a view to not be an embrassment at the World Cup and more importantly have a realistic hope of winning the Asian Cup in early 2015 the search for a new coach began. Also the penalty awarded against Australia didn't touch David Carney's arm. Not convinced it made a huge difference to the result... This was an friendly match. | ||||
| Played : October 11 | Venue : Parc de Princes, Paris | |||
| France Hugo Lloris, Mathieu Debuchy, Raphael Varane, Eric Abidal (Mamadou Sakho 46), Patrice Evra (Gael Clichy 64), Loic Remy, Yohan Cabaye (Moussa Sissoko 83), Samir Nasri, Paul Pogba (Blaise Matuidi 63), Franck Ribery (Mathieu Valbuena 63), Olivier Giroud (Karim Benzema 46) Goals : Ribery 8pk, Giroud 16, 27, Cabaye 29, Debuchy 47, Benzema 51 |
6 | - | 0 | Australia Mitchell Langerak, Lucas Neill, David Carney (Jason Davidson 46), Luke Wilkshire (Matthew Leckie 69), Rhys Williams, Mile Jedinak, James Holland, Matt McKay, Marco Bresciano, Tim Cahill (Josh Kennedy 80), Robbie Kruse (Nikita Rukavytsya 46) |
| Referee : Artur Manuel Ribeiro Soares Dias (Portugal) Linesmen : Ricardo Jorge Ferreira Santos, Rui Licinio Barbosa Tavares (Portugal) Attendance : 30000 Coaches : Holger Osieck (Australia), Didier Deschamps (France) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| After last meeting Canada in the playoffs for the 1994 World Cup the (friendly) hostilities are re-ignited as Australia try to prepare for the World Cup 20 years on. In those games Aurelio Vidmar was a player, in this one he is caretaker coach. This was an friendly match. | ||||
| Played : October 15 | Venue : Craven Cottage, London, England | |||
| Australia Mitchell Langerak (Matthew Ryan 46), Jason Davidson, Rhys Williams (Oliver Bozanic 68), Lucas Neill, David Carney, Mile Jedinak (Jackson Irvine 83), James Holland, Dario Vidosic, Matt McKay, Mark Bresciano (Nikita Rukavytsya 73), Joshua Kennedy (Mathew Leckie 62) Goals : Kennedy 1, Vidosic 52, Leckie 79 |
3 | - | 0 | Canada Milan Borjan, Marcel de Jong (Samuel Piette 60), Adam Straith, Doneil Henry, Nikolas Ledgerwood (Jonathon Osorio 46), Simeon Jackson (Ashtone Morgan 54), Julian de Guzmán (Kyle Bekker 25), David Edgar, Tosaint Antony Ricketts, Iain Hume (Stefan Cebara 46), Dwayne De Rosario (Russell Teibert 46) |
| Referee : Michael Dean (England) Linesmen : Michael Mullarkey, Peter Kircup (England) Attendance : 3741 Coaches : Aurelio Vidmar (Australia), Benito Floro (Canada) | ||||
| Squad Listing | ||||
| Announced October 23, along with the appointment of Ange Postecoglou as Socceroo coach (for 5 years!), this match was the beginning of a mandated change of playing personnel a mere few months prior to the World Cup in Brazil. It was also the week prior to this match that absolute legend Mark Schwarzer announced he was retiring effective immediately. We love you Schwarzy. This was a Friendly match. | ||||
| Played : November 19 | Venue : Sydney Football Stadium | |||
| Australia Matthew Ryan, Lucas Neill, Mark Milligan (Matt McKay 77), Matthew Leckie (Tim Cahill 52), Robbie Kruse (Joshua Kennedy 77), Rhys Williams (Ryan McGowan 48), Mile Jedinak, Jason Davidson, Marco Bresciano (Tommy Oar 61), Ivan Franjic, Dario Vidosic (Tom Rogic 61) Goal : Cahill 69 |
1 | - | 0 | Costa Rica Patrick Pemberton, Geancarlo Gonzalez, Michael Umana, Celso Borges (Esteban Granados 72), Oscar Duarte, Bryan Oviedo (Junior Diaz 58), Jonathan McDonald (Kenny Cunningham 46), Joel Campbell (Carlos Hernandez 79), Cristian Gamboa, Diego Calvo (Randall Brenes 46), Jose Miguel Cubero (Ariel Rodriquez 76) |
| Referee : Hiroyoshi Takayama (Japan) Linesmen : Luke Brennan, Paul Centragalo (Australia) Attendance : 20165 Coaches : Angelo Postecoglou (Australia), Jorge Luis Pinto (Costa Rica) | ||||
| Australian squad | ||||