Sydney – Thousands of Australian football fans thronging Sydney’s Darling Harbour entertainment precinct on Monday stood with blank faces in front of blank screens trying to come to terms with a monumental 4-0 loss to Germany.
The fanatics amongst them had dreamt of an upset victory in their opening World Cup game in South Africa and the optimists of a draw against the three-time champions.
What unfolded in Durban was worse than either camp expected.
The magnitude of the defeat was conceded by captain Lucas Neill.
“As a whole, we made silly mistakes and we got punished and at this level that’s what happens,” he told public broadcaster SBS.
“They are a very good team, but we made it easy for them by giving away an early goal, a very sloppy goal, and then going down to 10 men after being 2-0 down made it very difficult,” Neill said.
Danger man Tim Cahill proved a danger to himself, being sent off in the 56th minute for a rough tackle.
And the non-appearance of Harry Kewell and Mark Bresciano gave the lie to coach Pim Verbeek’s proclamation that there were no injury worries in his squad.
“We have to beat Ghana and we have to beat Serbia,” Verbeek said. “We knew already that the moment you lose this game you have to play two finals.”
The upmarket Lowenbrau Keller near the Harbour Bridge held a ticket-only screening that attracted German tourists. There were cheers as the goals were slotted home.
But at the German Concordia Club in the suburb of Tempe, where the crowd of 300 was made up of mostly of those who left Germany a long time ago, the mood was surprisingly sombre.
There were German flags, an urn of glueweine, an accordion player and black, yellow and red balloons.
But delight at a German triumph mingled with sadness that the adopted country had been humbled.
Anthony Jucha, who likes to watch World Cup games in the dens of Australia’s opponents, remarked on the even split between German and Socceroos supporters at the Concordia.
“I had expected there to be mostly Germans,” he said.
An even bigger surprise for Jucha was the combination of delight and disappointment as the Australians were overwhelmed.
Author: Sid Astbury
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/328882,australians-cold-durban-disaster.html
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1562968.php/Socceroos-leave-Australians-cold-after-Durban-disaster
http://classic.goalzz.com/main.aspx?showarticle=70095&obj=0