First up the Socceroos had to face China in the first round of the knockout stages. The quarter final was definitely going to be Australia’s hardest fixture so far. Australia managed to take out the match with a fantastic 2-0 victory thanks to the legend that is TIMMY CAHILL, shit he is looking top notch at the moment.

Australia had a relatively flat first half and the Chinese looked to be the better team throughout the opening stages. China managed to create a few solid chances, and really had Australian fans sweating.  They were sitting deep and slowing down the play, giving Australia a lot of time on the ball but not allowing them to create any real chances. Whilst doing this they were also pouncing on Australia’s errors. Australia then managed to find their feet  and started playing some promising football, creating a few chances a little later on in the first half and really started to look dangerous.  However their finishing was not as high a standard as previous matches, and a rare header miss from Cahill definitely got the Aussie fans sweating.  

Then just when you were thinking it was not going to be Straya’s night, Timmy Cahill comes up with an absolute stormer of a goal, a pinger of a goal, a ripsnorter of a goal it was a bloody great goal, I could use all the terms in my limited vocabulary to describe it but boy it was tasty. Facing away from goal and in the corner outside the 6 yard box the ball came to Cahill and he bicycle kicked it into the back of the net. Cahill had such limited space to work with and hit it as perfectly as you could of to be able to beat Wang Delie and yet keep it inside the post. Well done Timmy, still doesn’t beat your World cup goal, but it must be right up there with goals of your career. Australia really came to life after this goal and started to dominate the match, but really it was going to be no other then Timmy Cahill who was going to close of the match and in classic Cahill style with a well-placed, powerful header.  This sealed the match for the Socceroos and set up a Semi-final.

The Socceroos played out their semi-final Tuesday night against much to my surprise the UAE. I really expected to see Japan in the semi but never the less UAE managed to play a strong game and gained them a semi-final spot against the host nation STRAYYAA. However their chances of a final drastically reduced just inside 3 minutes when Trent Sainsbury managed to rise high and produce  a great headed finish. I thought Cahill was about to grab another goal but when he fell short the big centre back managed to get up and get it in. Not a bad way to grab your debut goal!

The UAE were not rocked by the opening goal and managed to keep firing a created their best chance of the match when danger man Omar Abdulrahman slipped the ball down to Abdelaziz Sanqour who put in a perfect cross to Ahmed Khalil who’s shot stuck the base of the post. It was then back to the other end of the pitch in a dramatically entertaining opening first 20 mins. Australia was then able to do what the UAE had just failed to do and sunk another goal, this time it was the unlikely left back Jason Davidson who slotted a great strike into the left hand corner also gaining him his debut goal.

This second goal really deflated the UAE and gave Australia a massive confidence booster. Australia really showed their critics what’s up here. In previous games people have criticized Australia for generally starting slow and taking a while to get in to the game, clearly two goals in the opening 20 mins has put a hush to this. 

Australia has now advanced to the final stage of the 2015 Asian Cup and now have a major chance to add a really nice big piece of silverware to their slightly baron trophy cabinet. They are up against Korea Republic who has handed the Socceroos their only defeat of the tournament so far. I am pretty confident that the Australians will take this out though. There is no doubt that the Koreans will be up for this game and they have a slight mental advantage with having beat the Strayans in the final pool round, but I think its definitely going to be Australia’s day. I’m going to go out and call it 3-1 to Aussie.