Farewell, Harry Kewell, and thanks

Harry Kewell is soon gone and Australian football will be the poorer for it. His precocious incision single-handedly brought about many of the supreme highlights the sport has offered the Great Southern Land, and he was in 2012 voted the greatest ever Australian player.

He was his nation’s great football enigma: the most talented, technical player his land has produced, yet so different from his peers in both aspect and attitude. No other Australian has won both the UEFA Champions League and the FA Cup; in an era in which Australia’s best players all performed in top leagues, Harry Kewell at Leeds United and then Liverpool was the world’s focus point – it was he who boasted to the world that Skippies could play this game.

As Bonita Mersiades tracks excellently in The Guardian, Kewell began his career revered by the Australian common man, a true underdog story that youngster capable of bedazzling older, more cynical men. Then followed something of a symbiotic disdain between him and the nation of his birth – he felt the nation’s expectations too great, we (often unfairly) thought him something of a drama queen.

Australians had never had a player like Harry Kewell before. We’d been involved with several wonderful players – Christian Vieri, Mark Bosnich and Craig Johnston spring to mind – but never a truly elite Socceroo who could win World Cup qualifiers from his own left peg. And an Australia less familiar with the particulars of soccer didn’t exactly know what to expect from a gift completely unlike the blunt but effective objects we were used to.

Sporting a slight British twang that noticeably increased the longer he was in England, Harry played for Australia, but for so long was not truly of Australia. This verisimilitude defined Kewell as a Socceroo – an otherworldly weapon, a blade of valyrian steel available only at great cost. Even repatriated to the antipodean fold in his waning years, Kewell remained easily identifiable by virtue of his talent, temperament and attitude. He remains the best player his country has produced by some margin.

Despite spending his peak years rarely suiting up in gold (13 Australia appearances between 1998 and 2005) the Socceroos have never looked better than when boasting Kewell on the left and Brett Emerton on the right of midfield. Injury permitting – always the caveat with Harry – when the games mattered, he played. And invariably contributed.

The pairing of Kewell and Emerton is not coincidental. The duo were reared within earshot, left Australia to play in England at about the same time and were two of the first picked for any Socceroo manager for over a decade. They are mirror versions of one another – one less talented but hardworking and utterly dependable; the other more fragile yet eminently capable of ripping open any game.

This is the defining Harry Kewell paradox, and his legacy: Emerton, a technically inferior but hardworking player who embraced Australia wholeheartedly wouldn’t lose you a match, is remembered more fondly than Kewell, who would win those games for you amidst hubbub often of his own manufacture.

Thank you, Harry Kewell, for those intricate memories that stretch from Iran to the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium. Your body has earned this break.

Socceroo @HarryKewell announces his retirement from football! #ThanksHarry pic.twitter.com/2SueCftN8P
— The Socceroos (@Socceroos) March 26, 2014

Lucas Neill is the new Harry Kewell

Pick one: Sydney Olympic of the New South Wales Premier League, or Watford, promotion contenders in England’s League Championship.

Yup, Lucas Neill has landed on his feet.

Maybe.

Ageing Australia captain Neill needed a club in the worst way in order to lead the Socceroos to this year’s World Cup. There are zero bones about this – seventy-four games for six teams in four years since the last Cup is a telling statistic. Neill was, and perhaps still is, in serious danger of missing Ange Postecoglu’s squad after vehemently criticizing Australia’s young players following ex-manager Holger Osieck’s departure in October.

This week, he has been cut by manager Ange Postecoglu from the Socceroos’ squad for a warm-up game against Ecuador while simultaneously batting seemly eyelashes towards former club Blackburn Rovers and hometown Olympic.

Only in Australian gold does he still command respect for his abilities, if not for his personally-vaunted natural leadership. If he places so much currency in that leadership, it speaks ill of his stocks in this trait that each of his last four teams have not seen the same value. Many younger Socceroos would not share his own lofty opinions of his charisma.

After long stints at Millwall – a club with a long fondness for Aussies – and similarly-inclined Blackburn Rovers, Neill has become a shiftless free agent, roaming the globe in search of game time and ready coin. In the eight years since his defining day in the gold and green, Australia’s most publicized player has played for nine clubs with declining influence. Such has been his difficulty settling down that there have been few stories reporting on-field performance and many on possible landing spots, dressing-shed schisms and how – or if – he fits into a new generation of Socceroos.

Since the South Africa 2010, the defender has only managed over twenty games at one club, rocking up to 39 matches alongside compatriot Harry Kewell at Galatasaray during 2010-11. There is no coincidence that Cimbom’s assistant manager at the time was Guus Hiddink’s sidearm and noted Neill fan Johan Neeskens.

There’s an odd symmetry to the link-up with Kewell, for Lucas has now replaced Kewell as Australian football’s story-for-hire.

Kewell, the captain’s contemporary for Australia, Galatasaray (and nearly Liverpool), has a reputation for making the game all about Harry: overblown and poorly-timed injuries, startling recoveries, a soap-star wife, will-he-play-in-Australia questions, will-he-play-for-Australia questions, an ego with its own gravitational pull and, buried beneath those B-list celebrity trappings, sublime talent.

After making a name for himself as a hard-bitten defender capable of playing both on the right and centrally, Neill has become a similar figure of parody. His presence in the game is now less about his times on the pitch than when he is removed from it. The questions surrounding him are not as lurid as those flung at Kewell, but instead wonder if Neill can successfully contribute to a dressing room, if his inflated opinion of his leadership abilities are to his (and others’) detriment and if he even demands a place on merit in a Socceroo backfield.

Amidst all this, if he is match-fit, Neill probably still has a role to play. With Rhys Williams missing the tournament, Neill may be the best central defender Australia has to offer to a terrifying group in Brazil. He has an amount of that chest-out, chin-up defiance made so popular by John Terry that if not encumbered with egotism might prove invaluable in an Australian squad likely to include several players at their first Cup.

Watford will provide fourteen potential opportunities to prove to Postecoglu that he can contribute tactically and physically rather than solely with his Spartan brand of leadership.

Shocker: Billionaire football club owner is mental

The Australian A-League, a competition set up to minimise infighting and partisanship while maximising club longevity, has again slid inexorably into disarray. And this time, it's one man's madness rather than hyper-optimistic expansion or Kevin Muscat perpetual battle with the red-mist.

The lone figure isn't even Harry Kewell.

Although the league is markedly strengthened from it's nascence, the competition – and the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) – have been rendered impotent and the fall guy of a former owner.

To paraphrase Python, Clive Palmer is an ex-owner.

When the league expanded three seasons ago, the Gold Coast appeared to have the strongest of the two expansion licences. Their locale was growth market, they boasted a solid squad and even a passable coach who pinned the team to “franchise” players Shane Smeltz, Jason Culina and Michael Thwaite. Only three years later, the FFA has revoked the club's licence and the team looks as if it has passed football's Event Horizon.

Who knows why Palmer decided to bid for the initial licence. Why the FFA granted him a team is no secret: his dimensionally-transcendent pocketbook made him irresistible. But Australian mining magnates have an unwavering tendency to the irregular: just ask Lang Hancock, Rose Porteous and Gina Rinehart.

Since obtaining the rights to own Gold Coast United, Palmer has persistently, and even maliciously, undermined his football club with ludicrous management decisions. The last of which, where he personally appointed debutant seventeen year-old Mitch Cooper club captain, cost him his the remaining shreds of his credibility. His rap sheet is stupefying in it's capacity self-destruction and therefore incriminating.  This copy doesn't include slamming football as a sport and an open challenge for FFA Chairman Frank Lowy to pit their respective wealth against each other in court. Football is better off without him.

It's now becoming apparent soccer in Australia can't win. Where in the bunker days of the old NSL it was lack of money that turned fans away, this time it is the expectation of those who do spend. There seems to be no middle ground and it is this which Lowy and offsider Ben Buckley must see as their utmost priority.

John Aloisi: helping or hurting?

With A-League clubs beginning to convince the younger members of Australia's golden generation to return to antipodean shores, such moves come with a warning from the country's favourite penalty-taker, John Aloisi.

Aloisi, the first Australian to play in the all three major European leagues (with Cremonese, Coventry City and Osasuna), retired after one season at A-League new boys Melbourne Heart and did not have a happy homecoming after two years as Sydney FC's marquee player. Even though he scored a creditable 27 goals in 75 A-League matches, his time in Australia has formed an unhappy coda to a wonderful career.

His experience has apparently convinced Australia custodian Mark Schwarzer never to return to the A-League. This is presumably because he "copped it" from non-football types who expect their superstar striker - which was what Aloisi was paid like, at least initially - to score more than four goals every ten games. With soccer, the general complaint of those who don't follow it regularly is a relative lack of incident - and Australia have plenty of those fans. He was unable to bear the media and uneducated fan pressure which expected his building excitement around the league and his own play.

This is not his fault: he was the first striker from the 2006 World Cup squad to come home - Archie Thompson never left - and arrived in town at an age where his pace and skills were beginning to decline. Many of the expectations were not only unrealistic, but fantastical.

courtesy: theroar.com.au

The A-League has garnered significant publicity for a fledgling competition, and in a country where it's very much the fifth sport (or worse), it's only natural that attention falls on those players with the greatest reputations and past achievements. That much of the publicity surrounding John Aloisi (and his less-gifted, more brutal younger brother Ross) was more negative than positive (language warning) has apparently left Aloisi - now the manager of the Heart's youth team - feeling like it's important to shoo his Socceroo teammates away.

He's now warned Brett Emerton and Harry Kewell that they face playing with lesser teammates. This, combined with his almost vicarious words through Schwarzer, makes him the opposite of what he was paid for in Sydney and Melbourne - an anti-advertisement for Australia's premier football competition. His words - though almost certainly true - aren't constructive.

He is of course free to give his opinions - and some of his observations are astute. Kewell and Emerton are likely to be frustrated by some of the circumstances surrounding football in Australia. Both, however, are aware of any potential pitfalls, but have been offered terms (or family benefits) which can't be found elsewhere. Given his propensity for a life under the microscope, Kewell may find the going especially tough, while the reserved Emerton looks a virtual certainty to succeed at Sydney FC.

His messages are mixed and don't offer the A-League up as an enticing option for Australians or any other big names looking for a final payday. In fact, given his role in youth development at Heart (eeugh) he may be in the medium term, minimising his own future employment prospects.

The A-League is a flawed league - as are most, especially where football is not the nation's primary sport. Australia relies on big name players to generate interest in football between World Cup campaigns. It is simple enough for Aloisi to say as such, rather than elucidating further. He should inform his teammates and friends of what they should expect to encounter in a private, rather than a public forum.

According to Henry Ford, should a person be satisfied with a purchased service, they will tell a maximum of three people; if they are dissatisfied, they will tell a minimum of seven. Aloisi is following that rule of thumb. Bad publicity now outweighs the A-League's success stories in the national press. Further sideways aspersions from Aloisi is press attention the league can ill afford.

A-League? No, it's all about Harry.

Harry Kewell.

A show-pony. A drama queen. The best football player to come out of Australia.

Just the mention of his name prompts the football fan to opine. It's impossible not to, given his remarkably high-profile successes and failures. The recent debate over a possible move to the Australian A-League has once more forced even the non-football fans to choose a side of the fence - for or against Harry.

The move didn't materialise amidst reports Kewell's salary demands were met by the A-League's biggest two clubs, Sydney FC and the Melbourne Victory, but his requests to the Football Federation Australia (who administer the league) were not. Those demands allegedly included a percentage of the gate for increased attendances his appearance likely would encourage. His manager Bernie Mandic last week nixed any possible return to Australia, saying 32 year-old Kewell would pursue further European opportunities.

The reaction from Joe Public was almost overwhelmingly negative, prompting the hashtag #KewellALeagueDemands to trend on Twitter as amateur wits made increasingly ludicrous requests. Australians, never the most patient or forgiving of peoples, have very little time for "it's all about me" types. It was taken in fun by Kewell and his wife Sheree Murphy, but still exemplifies the scorn such demand generated.

And more than any other combination of four words - more even than "Injury plagued Aussie footballer" the words "It's all about me", define Harry Kewell. At seventeen he was the darling of the Australian soccer community with two goals in the World Cup qualifying playoff loss to Iran (hardly an upset as the partisan video suggets), he married the soap-star princess and played, sorry, rehabbed for one of the world's great clubs, Liverpool, in a country where the cult of celebrity is worshipped by many above almost all else.

How else would you describe him after his comments concerning a galling red card in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? "The guy has killed my World Cup" doesn't reflect his unavailability despite an obvious important role for the Socceroos, but how it affects Harry. Mandic shouldn't be blamed for his role and neither should Kewell - Mandic is just doing his job, while as a football-hungry public demanded identification, home-grown Harry was our best association with the World Game and thus the unholy combination of Australian expectation/respect and English tabloids created the persona Harry Kewell now proffers.

Who are we to blame a young(ish) man for wanting it all? A family life AND a well-paid football career - sound familiar? It should, because it's nearly exactly the same situation as thelatest Carlos Tevez dilemma, only in reverse. Kewell is content with family life - indeed, Australia would be preferable to Turkey, Russia or even Germany - but isn't able to meet his financial demands. And while Tevez's constant "Look at Carlos" act has worn thin and his methods are dubious, Harry's act is walking a similarly fine line.

By asking for a percentage of any increased gate takings, Harry Kewell and Bernie Mandic are asking for a degree of responsibility that few have shouldered in the fledgling competition. Indeed, while Archie Thompson, Nicky Carle and most notably Robbie Fowler have tried to lift the competition on their shoulders, onlyDwight Yorke has managed to do so successfully. The combination of responsibility doesn't usually rest well on the shoulders of someone whose first priority - and he's hardly alone in this - is himself.

In a business based on exposure, both Kewell and Tevez benefit from their profiles; Tevez also so through his talent. Harry Kewell has become the object of scorn because his profile appeals to a much smaller population: that of Australia, England and possibly Turkey. It is only right he should seek the best deal for himself within that market.

And the FFA is perfectly within it's rights to refuse to accommodate those demands. Partly because even Kewell's salary would further imperil already-struggling A-League teams and therefore further payments based on increased attendance would make even less fiscal sense. It just isn't good business for Ben Buckley and his offsiders and so the likelihood is you'll see Harry next pop up in the hoops of Celtic, Queens Park Rangers or Kayserispor.

It's almost certain that Harry Kewell will perform a valedictory tour in the A-League, displaying as a marquee player some of that dazzle which won him so many admirers so long ago. It would be good business sense to do so - but not for another contract period or so, while bigger dollars, less expectation and better competition await. With those business aspects kept firmly in mind, the chances of Harry Kewell joining the A-League this year were never great, but the publicity certainly was.

Harry Kewell the answer to A-League's Marquee question?

The Hyundai A-League - and by extension, the Football Federation of Australia - reels from one crisis to another. If it's not declining crowd numbers, owners threatening to close stands rather than see empty seats, franchises folding, disastrous World Cup bids (corruption or not) or even stars entering fan forums, then it's clubs failing to take advantage of the league's generous marquee player policy.

Of course most of these problems can be traced back to one thing - A-League clubs are struggling to make ends meet. Football ranks a clear fourth on the Australian football consciousness behind Australian Rules, Rugby League and Rugby Union. Therefore the sport tends to pick up hard core fans, bandwagon supporters leftover from World Cups and the occasional family based around a growing number of Soccer Mums. This is to be expected however, having remained unchanged for five yeras - and the sport, though not making quantum leaps in popularity, forms a much greater part in the nation's sporting psyche.

The A-League now allows each club three marquee players, ostensibly top-end guys whose wages are not counted towards a team's salary cap: an International Marquee player, a Marquee Australian and a Marquee Youth player. These rules exist in theory to both lure top end talent and protect young assets. While this is a generous format, the FFA (who administer the A-League) does not contribute to the players' salaries, the result of this being A-League clubs draw five to ten-thousand fans per match are forced to pay players like Sergio Van Dijk, Robbie Fowler and his Perth Glory replacement Liam Miller serious dollars.

In business, organisations almost always must spend money to make it. It's the way the world works - wise investment brings about fiscal rewards and peace of mind. It was thus when Dwight Yorke signed for Sydney FC for the A-League's first campaign - he signed for the lifestyle, found the football to his liking, led Sydney to the A-League title and secured a move back to the English Premier League with Sunderland. It was coincidence that he (along with the Victory's Archie Thompson) was the first big name to join, but he is now the A-League's definitive Marquee Player and the benchmark - for better or worse - by which all subsequent imports are judged.

Yorke's situation was the perfect combination of circumstance: famously involved in a big club (Manchester United), with a sparkling, eloquent public profile and due to Trinidad & Tobago's 2006 World Cup campaign, still with reasons to perform other than personal pride. That Manchester United connection created a 10% increase in crowds across the league - Yorke was a man the crowds came to watch. Subsequent marquee signings like Robbie Fowler haven't had the same impact either on the pitch or as a league ambassador.

Approaching the A-League's seventh season, the ten clubs employ a grand total of Three Junior Marquee players, four Australian Marquee players and two (!) international "stars" - New Zealand striker Shane Smeltz and former Dutch U21 International Van Dijk. The Australian Marquee players are Archie Thompson, Mile Sterjovski, Nicky Carle and Jason Culina. Culina perhaps aside, it's difficult - impossible, even - to see any of those six transferring to a high-level club abroad.

The marquee player must in future be modeled on Dwight Yorke. He shouldn't be the only prototype as South Americans also could well check the requisite boxes, but it must be remembered antipodean crowds have a far greater knowledge of European football than the Samba style (no, not Christopher). Not only must such a player sparkle on the pitch, but he must be able to provide a lift to the league in the media.

Some players linked to out-of-cap positions - like Harry Kewell - could perform those functions; others however, most notably Serb striker Mateja Kežman, are a risky proposition. Melbourne in particular has a large Slavic population and could provide a slight bump in local crowds but club executives must ask themselves if a player such as serial-mover Kežman could warrant such spendthrift expenditure - does his one season at Chelsea, four at PSV and cups of coffee at Fenerbahce, PSG and Atletico really provide the league-wide PR lift the A-League so desperately needs? While his age and skills could well justify the salary slot he'd take up, would his name inspire the Rugby League fan to join? Or the AFL nut?

Australian soccer consciousness, so far increased since the magical 2006 World Cup, is still really in its infancy. It is so far behind that, for better or worse, it takes big names, not just quality footballers, to get the alert sporting landscape to attend. And with the local clubs haemmorhaging money, is it in fact prudent to spend $40,000AUD a week on a player not a "sure thing"?

The FFA must step in and contribute. Perhaps it could facilitate local teams signing the fading superstars of the game, if only on one-season deals. Though the game's governing body is skint from a highly unsuccessful World Cup hosting bid, contributing a small percentage of an international marquee player's salary to each team strictly for that purpose could be an option.

While Australian "marquee" players aid the competition, the league now understands it is names who will grow the sport. Of Australians, only Kewell could fit that bill. It takes money to make money and as abhorrent as spending more money sounds to leaky propositions such as Central Coast and the Gold Coast, prudent investment may be the best way forward.

Would Roberto Carlos, Alessandro Del Piero, Shunsuke Nakamura or even Theofanis Gekas be interested in a final payday? Even though Clarence Seedorf and Florent Malouda have suggested a desire to play in Brazil, both have the requisite stature and ability for them to be attractive targets for Aussie clubs. Perhaps with all six the answer would be negative, but certainly they would be players of whom League chiefs should be aware.

The A-League is a good league. By inspiring the masses - and cashing in on their attendance - it can become very good.

Asian Cup Semi Final Diary: Australia vs. Uzbekistan

The Asian Cup nears it's culmination this week as the Semi-Finals and Finals are played. Traditional powers contested one semi, Japan and South Korea; while two of the region's newer tyros are to fight out the second - still new-to-region Australia and the wealthy Uzbekistan, their FFA's pockets filled by natural resource money. This morning's first semi-final had the Blue Samurai progressing on penalties after a goal each in extra time - South Korea levelled right on 120 minutes. The shootout a bit anticlimactic as none of the first three South Koreans converted their spot-kicks.

The Uzbeks got here by defeating Jordan in the Quarter-Finals while Australia have been troubled only rarely in the tournament so far but needed extra time to beat Iraq in the round previous. While we talk about this year's Asian Cup, I'll intersperse it with what's happening in Qatar.

Kick off. No surprises in the Australia lineup. Honestly don't know enough about the Uzbeks to say if their team has any major changes.

There's no coincidence that it's these four in the Semi-Finals. The leagues in Japan, Korea and Australia, while unable to compete for cash with the excessively wealthy Arabic and Emirati leagues, so don't have necessarily the most high-end talent but rather deepest leagues from top team to bottom.

GOOAALLL! Harry Kewell, you little beauty! After only five minutes, what a way to start! Played in beautifully by David Carney, he slots it low to the left of the Uzbek goalie Juraev. Silky smooth, just as you'd expect of a player with his talents. He scored the winner in the quarter-final too - repaying the Australian nation's public with his performances.

The South Koreans have been led by the usual suspects - Park Ji-Sung and striker Koo Ja-Cheol who scored in all their group games. For Japan it's been Dortmund's Shiniji Kagawa and CSKA Moscow's Keisuke Honda fronting their attack. For the Uzbeks, well, who knows? Almost their entire squad plays at home in the petro-funded Uzbek league.

Like against Iraq in the 2007 Asian Cup Finals, Australia are bossing any physical encounters only to be outmanoeuvred by their lighter-footed opponents. Younis Mahmoud was just outstanding that day, today it seems to be the stupendously named Ulugbek Bakaev.

Australia have been led by another old stager - Harry Kewell. A figure who prompts both derision and admiration back home, the average Aussie is certain Kewell's our most gifted footballer ever. Sadly though, Harry's struggled to repay his country on the largest stages as injury robbed him of his physical gifts and a possible lack of desire means he's turned out for the 'Roos less than we'd like.

Unusually Wilkshire's been beaten for pace a few times on the right and has fouled his man in dangerous positions. It's Uzbek captain Server Djeparov and defender Viktor Kaprenko causing the problems.

Kewell's only turned it on for the Green and Gold army early on where he scored home and away against Iran in the World Cup Playoffs 1997. Then and his memorable goal in the 2006 World Cup. Aside from that, his time in the national setup has been largely disappointing and for the most part nonexistent. Since he joined Galatasary he's been somewhat revitalised . Perhaps Australia's most famous footballing export and his Golden Generation comrades may yet win a trophy to back up all the hype over the years.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!

Ognenovski, too. What a player, it's probably Pim Verbeek's largest legacy that he decided time and again against picking this guy. From a set piece, headed by Cahill (who else?) into the path of the big man who calmly finished it off. Kisses all round - teammates, wedding band alike. 35min in.

Uzbekistan's more famous footballing moments of late have been high-profile mistakes, really. Aside from the goal that wasn't at the Asian Games in November - their keeper was almost as palpably culpable as the immortal Khalfan Fahad - Uzbekistan football last hit the headlines when their largest club Bunyudkor, one of the Asian Champions' League's usual suspects employed Big Phil, Luis Felipe Scolari ...

Geez, that was close. Carney chests down to Schwarzer in the box with an Uzbek striker not far away. Carney going forward is a great threat for Australia. Carney defending is also a great threat for Australia, and not in a good way.

... As I was saying, Bunyudkor must've paid through the nose for Big Phil, who then promptly brought Rivaldo to the club. They played one Champions' League game in Adelaide and lost, Rivaldo was still there but Big Phil had gone back to Brazil by then. Rivaldo's back there now, too.

One minute of extra time in the first half. Uzbekistan creates down the left again - Wilkshire's man, strange, he's usually the best of our defenders - and the cross finds an open man at the top of the box. His drive goes well wide though.

Half Time.

Ready to go in the second half.

Oooh, that was a real cahnce for Harry. Long through ball from Matt McKay, right on the money and Kewell didn't control it to his satisfaction, cleared for a coner, which Australia wins the header and it goes wide. They've really got the best of the air.

Taking a glance through the stats at half time and you've got to feel for Walid Abbas of the UAE. He managed to score two own goals in one tournament which could be some sort of record. The UAE only managed three games too. The goalscorers are interesting, South Korea's Koo Ja-Cheol and Bahrain's Ismael Abdullatif have four, and Our Harry has three, crucial ones too.

Looks like a sub's going to come on for Australia, 22yo Robbie Kruse of the Melbourne Victory seems to be warming up. Maybe coach Holger Osieck wants to keep Cahill or Kewell fresh for the final if we make it. Neither have a card so it's not to ensure discipline. Turns out Harry Kewell's coming off for the in-form Victory striker.

The Asian Champions League and Asian Cup really seems to have benefited from Australia's involvement. I don't think the smaller nations are necessarily going to lose out by having anthoer top-30 ranked team ....

Really nice move by Kruse - wrong-foots a defender from the left and challenges the goalkeeper with a fizzing shot. Uzbekistan have made a substitution, with Hasanov coming off for Bikmaev.

Anyway, I think Australia involved in Asia adds to the lustre and considering this tournament was won by war-torn Iraq last time and Uzbekistan have made it to the semis this time around there shouldn't be too much of a debate about the detrimental effects to smaller nations. Both countries have good footballing traditions but lesser repute.

Holger Osieck is up off the bench now, chatting to the referee. There really have been some dubious calls go against Australia. A little bit too much razzle-dazzle attempted by the Uzbeks as their buildup work is shorted out by Australian defenders.

Another Uzbek substitution now as Tursinov is sent on by coach Vadim Abramov.

Abramov, who sports the archetypal Eastern European mullet and simply enormous 'tache which makes him look the spitting image of the Paddle Pop Lion.

Australia are doing better now, controlling possession well as Kruse and Cahill hold the ball up well. Emerton on now for Holman as Bikmaev's free kick deflects off the wall for a corner. The Uzbeks really are going down very easily - they're aware the Aussies have a reputation for physical play and as such may be trying to exploit any preconceived ideas the referees may have.

What is a strength for Australia in Asia can also be a weakness. Typically our defenders are big strong strapping types - Craig Moore and Ognenovski are perfect examples - who are able to mix it up in the box and also...

Good looking movement ... Carney SCORES!!!! 3-0 Australia, we're going to the Asian Cup Final!! Carney received it from Matt McKay - an A-League guy who's played extremely well today - down the left as he nutmegs the goalkeeper. Tim Cahill signalling to the bench, he may be done for the day. Great play by no. 9, going around four Australian defenders only to shoot straight at Schwarzer. Ognenovski and Bakaev get into it -

And Bakaev picks up his second yellow! He's off! Clattered Luke Wilkshire - horrible tackle. Coach Abramov looks distinctly unimpressed.

Yeah, Aussie defenders - and midfielders too, to be honest - tend to physically dominate Asian midfields because Indonesian and (great chance goes begging as Cahill beats three, crosses to a beautifully-positioned Kruse who takes one touch too many and scuffs his shot into the keeper) Thai squads don't have the muscle to compete in the contest. It also, however, means that when exposed to the low-centre-of-gravity dribblers of which Asian has a multitude, they can be wound in circles.

Karpamov off for Ibragimamov; Leeds United's Neil Kilkenny - the perpetual Next Big Thing of Australian football - on for Tim Cahill. Another forward thrust by the Socceroos, they're really starting to put the foot on the throat. Emerton gets the ball from Kruse and the Uzbek keeper saves.

Still on the size differential, that inability to deal with the tricksters could be the reason that a right-back, Lucas Neill, has been our most effective centre-half for half a decade. It's probably also that the former Soviet Republics are a much easier proposition for Australia because their lienups have a little more si ... -

GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL! Robbie Kruse finds Brett Emerton and surely Australia can't be stopped. Long ball from Wilkshire to Kruse who beat the last defender for pace, got inside the area and squared it for Emerton who finished under pressure. Kruse has looked really good)

... size. The Uzbeks are big, physically impressive players up front and down back, who, though while creative aren't of the same agility as a Honda or Kagawa of Japan.

Australia are starting to exploit a tired Uzbek side. Golden Chance as it's a 4 on 2 fast break and Kruse, searching for his first international goal, has his shot saved by the keeper. With quite a bit of time to go, this could get ugly for the Uzbeks. They're not at the races so far this half and have been sliced open time and again by Kruse, Kewell, Cahill and the like.

Australia's chief concern now has to be preserving discipline and ensuring they don't lose any players for a Japan side against whom the Socceroos have only a middling record. Since the 2006 World Cup match where we came back to win 3-1 in the last fifteen minutes, I've been hooked on football, so this game will have some special significance. We lost (on penalties I think) against them in the 2007 Asian Cup so there's a little bit of major tournament rivalry going on between the two. Add to that a few of Australia's best play in the J-League and we could have a real hum-dinger of a final on Sunday.

GOOOOAAAALL!! Valeri this time, after great build up and hustle from the Australians. Abramov has resigned himself to taking this pantsing as the Uzbeks couldn't clear the ball, Kruse flicks it on with delicious skills to Matt McKay, who crosses for Valeri in the centre of the penalty box who slams it home. Emphatic performance by the Socceroos.

ANOTHER ONE!!!!!! GOOOOALLL! Kruse this time, as he takes the ball from the kick off, skirts four defenders, proceeds to the edge of the area and fires it past the hapless Uzbek keeper Juraev. 6-0!!! He deserves that, he's been brilliant since coming on and his teammates tell him so. Mark Schwarzer has even come up from goal to congratulate him. Perhaps one of the most celebrated sixth goals ever, they're happy for the lad.

Abramov looks like he's been told he has only days to live. He's already at stage 5 of the seven stages of grief by now.

Uzbekistan muster one final attack and Tursunov's attempt is deflected over by Schwarzer. The corner and it's re-take is cleared. Uzbekistan has barely approached their penalty area this half, it's been a dominant Socceroo performance. Three minutes of added time and it can't go quickly enough for the luckless Uzbeks, who talk in defence about as often as Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie do now.

As good as this performance has been by the Aussies, the Uzbeks really have dropped their heads here in the second half.

WHISTLE! Aurelio Vidmar congratulates Holger Osieck as the German makes the rounds of his players. Uzbekistan will have to regroup in the most startling way and cope without their best striker Bakaev on Saturday when they take on South Korea for third place. I'd back them to play much better than they did here today - after half time they were insipid.

Australia v. Japan? Well, a different story. Japan may have "played their final already" with today's penalty victory against their arch-rival, where Australia may have wanted a more thorough hit out before such a big match which easily rates as one of the largest in our history. No injuries, no suspensions it seems and only a fool would underestimate the Japanese on Sunday.

It was good to see that it was younger guys like Matt McKay and Robbie Kruse who led the team with Kewell rather than the guys we've relied on in the past like Luke Wilkshire, Lucas Neill and Tim Cahill. Bring on Sunday's final!