Jackson Irvine says Australia’s upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifier against Indonesia will have added significance after arguably “one of the worst nights in Socceroo history” in the loss to Bahrain.
Ranked 24th in the world, the Socceroos were expected to cruise past the 80th ranked Bahrain in a homer clash on the Gold Coast on Thursday night.
But instead Bahrain created history with the 1-0 defeat, the first ever in the sixth meetings between the teams, after an error by Harry Souttar and a red card saw Australia fall to a historic loss.
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Pundits took aim at the team in the aftermath of the match, with several labelling the performance “terrible” and quite possibly the “worst ever” in Socceroos history.
Aussie journalist Brad Davidson wrote on X: “What a terrible night for Australian football. Terrible tactics, terrible game to watch (time wasting at unbelievable levels) and just utterly poor skill level and no cohesion at all. Just so uninspiring. Surely we’re not this bad!? Last WC (World Cup) feels 2 decades ago.”
SMH football reporter Vince Rugari posted on X: “One of the worst nights in Socceroo history. It’s as simple as that.”
Commentator Simon Hill added: “Not a good night for the Socceroos. Constantly frustrated, found it hard to create chances. A Hrustic type player badly missed tonight. Still, early days…”
Kusini Yenei whacked with red card against Bahrain. Network 10
The Australians now face a must win game of sorts against Indonesia next Tuesday in Jakarta, just two games into their 10 game World Cup qualifier schedule in the current phase. They need a top two finish in their group to advance automatically.
“I think it’s massive,” Irvine said of the Indonesia clash. “The boys, we need to recognise it; it’s a huge game … recognise the magnitude of what that could look like in the context of these 10 games.
“We have to learn the lessons from this immediately and move to Tuesday because it’s an unbelievably disappointing result in performance, and we need to be far better.
“The kind of naivety and understanding the realities of Asian football … and how games can be managed. How games can slip away from you through not understanding the things that happen here.
“We try to prepare, especially the younger guys who haven’t been a part of this before of how [time wasting and gamesmanship] can happen. A few boys have learned very quickly tonight about that as well.
“There’s a little bit of bad luck as well. Putting some balls into some good areas and things just weren’t dropping for us.
“On another night, if one of them goes in early, that forces them to open up. And we see these games go very differently.
“We need to find ways to ask more questions of defences because that’s the way that you can make your own luck, in the box, in particular – when you can keep asking those questions, then something will drop for you.”
– with Sacha Mirzabegian