The 2015 Asian Cup has kicked off and it's pretty freaking enjoyable. I have never been in a country whilst a relatively big time football cup has been played and shit it is exciting. I managed to make it out to the Australia v Oman game and boy was it entertaining. It is really good to see Australians getting right into the round ball footy (soccer).

Yes, the atmosphere is still not quite there but hey it was still a great time and I think the bigger games will attract some pretty loose crowds. One thing I did note was the sportsmanship from the fans behind me that was anything but the green street hooligan style fans you almost come to expect at footy matches. Sitting a few rows behind me was a loud group of Omani fans who were very vocal throughout the match, which is always exciting but what surprised me was that they were not only chanting for their fellow countryman but they would also break out into Aussie chants which I thought was pretty cool. Whether or not the reasoning behind their new found switching of allegiance was the fact that Oman was getting pumped is another story, let’s just say it was all in the name of good old sportsmanship.

I ended up bringing along a mate of mine who had never been to a 'proper' football match before. It’s always entertaining watching someone try and grasp the game, I mean it is pretty straight forward but for a rugby bred kiwi it can bring forth a few questions, “why did that team get a free kick?” or “you can’t be serious, that would not have hurt! Why is he rolling on the ground?” Some questions are easy to answer then others, one thing I love about the Aussie football team is their ability to get up and get on with it. The All Whites are the same, it’s rare that you will see a player from these two teams make a big deal about a bad challenge and pretend to be hurt for 30 seconds before getting back up and acting like nothing happened. That pisses me off and it’s hard to explain to people especially a rugby player, but yea kudos Straya I like your play.

Anyway I’m pretty sure he had a good time, as I said before there were times where he was confused which wasn't helped by the fact that sometimes I would not be able to give him an answer because they would not show any replays on the big screen. I do not understand the reasoning for this, I heard people behind me rumouring that they were not playing them to avoid controversy. If that is true that is biggest load of shit I have ever heard. If you don’t trust your officials to make the right calls then choose different officials simple as that, don’t leave half the crowd to try and figure out what happened. 

Anyway it was an exciting game of footy with a lot of action mainly directed at the Omani Keeper Ali Al-Habsi who I feel had a pretty mediocre game for a player of his quality. Sure he was peppered with shots from the get go, but he did make quite a few errors which is quite uncharacteristic.  The match finished with Australia claiming victory 4 -0. Goals to, Matt Mckay, Robbie Kruse, Mark Milligan and Tomi Juric. This was one of the best games I have seen Australia play they really dominated from the get go and constantly put Oman under a heap of pressure. Timmy Cahill was outstanding, he is not the biggest player on the field but he has such amazing strength and his ability to win the ball in the air is second to none. His class is really shown when he is up against a slightly lower quality of player. 

This win gave Australia an automatic qualification into the quarter finals, however they will want to make it a clean sweep and take out Korea Republic on Saturday night. Korea are the next best team in this pool and it will be interesting to see how Australia plays it, do they put out their top side and risk injury? Or do they rest a few players and risk losing the match. Pretty tricky decision however Korea are in the same boat so I think it will be likely to see a few players from both sides rested.