We Are The Reds

It has been a great effort from the u19's as Australia teams are traditionally strong in defence, decent in the mid-field and bereft of ideas up front. To see the kids scoring regularly, even against potentially overage sides such as the Syrians, is positive indeed.

The Syrians were tough! Its not easy playing against the senior side! Apparently 1/3 of their squad was born on 1st Jan 1993. Suss much!

Wow that second goal. Cracker!
C'mon lads lets move forward and win this mother.
Give everyone something to look forward too, next gen!

0-0 at HT. Iraq have had the better chances the Aussies have played well in patches but as per usual we a broken down in the final third 99 time out of 100.
Gameiro had a couple of half chances with his head but they went over. No one really playing bad but no one really playing good either.
We played a couple of good balls thru the middle and sliced their defence open nicely so hopefully we see a lot more of that in the second half.

Oh no young socceroos win a penalty but Gameiro can't convert. Very well saved by the GK.
5 mins later Iraq score a well taken chance but credit must go to the lousy defending.
1-0 65mins

Well thats it. If that what the future holds for Australian Football we're in big trouble. The only decent chance created over the whole 90 mins was the penalty which was lucky to be awarded. Iraq's GK was very good on crosses but Australia going forward were dismal and both goals were from lousy defending. Personally as happy as I was to see us make it this far we were very lucky to without Corey Gameiro (our only goal scorer all tournament) we would have been out in the group stage.
We now look forward to the U20 World Cup in June 2013. If we play the same we I would bother booking the hotel past the group stage.