Schwarzer puts Australia in finals
Wednesday, November 16, 2005 Posted: 1311 GMT (2111 HKT)
Bresciano's goal took the inter-continental playoff to extra time.
Image:
SYDNEY, Australia -- Australia reached the World Cup finals after a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over Uruguay in Sydney on Wednesday night.
With the aggregate score 1-1 after extra time, home keeper Mark Schwarzer made two brilliant saves in the shoot-out to see Gus Hiddink's men through to Germany next year.
Marco Bresciano's 34th minute goal had given the Socceroos a 1-0 win in the second leg tie to cancel out Uruguay's victory by the same margin in Montevideo on Saturday.
Schwarzer blocked shots from Dario Rodriguez and Marcelo Zalayeta while Harry Kewell, Lucas Neill, Tony Vidmar and John Aloisi, with the clinching penalty, all scored for Australia.
Only captain Mark Viduka missed his spot kick, but it proved irrelevant as the Socceroos sent a crowd of 82,698 into raptures by advancing to Germany 2006.
"We thought it was going to happen, we've been dreaming it for 32 years," said Aloisi, who stripped off his shirt and ran along the sidelines after scoring the winning spot goal.
"We had 20 million people following us, we just can't believe it. We're there."
It was the first time a place in the World Cup finals had been decided by a penalty shoot-out.
Uruguay, who put out Australia in the same inter-continental playoff four years ago, will be rueing glaring misses by star forward Alvaro Recoba and Ricardo Morales either side of halftime for their failure to repeat the act.
Liverpool's Harry Kewell, who came on as a first half substitute for Tony Popovic, made the timely goal as his mis-hit shot from a Viduka pass fell into Bresciano's path to score.
Australia had the better of the second half with Bresciano going close to a crucial winner, but Uruguay looked the more composed side in added time and Morales fired wide with a low shot in the dying moments of the game.
That set up the penalty drama with Schwarzer's second penalty save from Zalayeta the decisive moment.
It came immediately after his Middlesbrough teammate Viduka scuffed his penalt wide to plunge the home crowd at the Telstra Stadium into a stunned silence.
It was left to substitute striker Aloisi to crack home the clinching penalty and wheel away in delight, chased by team-mates.
It gave the Socceroos an unassailable 4-2 lead in the shoot-out and left them dreaming of making an impact in the 32-strong finals Germany.
Hiddink, who described his job as "mission impossible" when taking over as Socceroos coach earlier this year, led the Netherlands and South Korea to the semifinals of the last two World Cups
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SPORT/football...alia/index.html
--><img src='http://www.yarl.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tongue.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&