Australian Soccer's Great Hope

For Australian and Uruguayan soccer tragics, tomorrow Wednesday is the big day. There's a lot of optimism in the home camp that the Socceroos can qualify for the big one for the first time since 1974.

As for the rest of us who take a passing interest in other football codes, we wonder if the local team has the talent to score two goals against the South Americans. After all, the Uruguay coach only has to stand his team in the goal mouth for 90 minutes to progress to Germany next year.

Surprisingly for some, I'm attending the game with my daughter tomorrow (oops) Wednesday night. It's my first live soccer game since the Sydney Olympics. Then, Australia lost to a team (I can't remember which one!) that continually feigned injury to disrupt the flow of the game to the home team's disadvantage. It was frustrating as hell to watch. I kept on thinking that the game should just continue if a player's down and no infringement was paid as a means to end the blatant time wasting.

Oh well, different sport, different culture.

So, good luck to the Socceroos. Take some risks, you've got nothing to lose.

And ... please, PLEASE, don't let it be decided by a penalty shootout!