Silent Lonesome Man

Australia. A European entity that is on the Asian football family. It sounds strange but it is. When joining the AFC in 2006, the country has just begun to learn to build a concrete football culture, something it lacked entirely. And now, when its football is just enjoying decent growth, it is facing an uphill task of winning all remaining four games, in order to survive. But while Australia's task is really difficult, Vietnam is even in a greater issue: to win at least the first points ever in the qualification. Being the least experienced in this round alone sucks, but, pointless after six games is hardly acceptable. Now, beating Australia is the only way to keep Vietnam on track, which, in reality, more like a fiction than reality. Even a crisis-hit Chinese side still obtained three points from Vietnam, then leave alone how could Vietnam ever win a game. It's so questionable. This dark reality is also intermingled with another issue related to the upcoming trip: a hostile di...

When Australia moved from the OFC to AFC in 2006, a number of question raised upon our head about Australia's football status. Well, it is a country mostly renowned in rugby and cricket rather than football - having just qualified for one World Cup in 1974; the 2006 marked Australia's second. However, Australia performed relatively well in that edition, only to fall to eventual champions Italy in the round of sixteen. But the AFC isn't uniform. It also includes sub-federations, which we have as of 2021, five sub-federation zones (West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia). Australia joined the Southeast Asian zone (AFF - ASEAN Football Federation) because of geographical proximity in 2013, but it has been the best-performed team from the region ever since, with five World Cups for now. Moreover, it carries the only honourable title for Southeast Asian football, the AFC Asian Cup, winning it in 2015. Australia is surely not at the best now - but by ou...

Just after hopes about the central government in Canberra to bow to the pressure from football, or in North American English, soccer-loving fans and the FFA, the news arrived with a shocking blow: again, the government and FFA failed to finalise an agreement. That meant October will again see Australia play home away from home: its base in Doha will be again used for the qualification. No one feels more pain than Mathew Leckie, who has to shoulder a huge responsibility as the new captain of the Aussies after the retirement of Mark Milligan, the last member of the Golden Era of the 2000s. It was the pandemic restriction in Down Under that hampered the planning of the Oz for the World Cup in Qatar. During the September perpetration, Australia gathered an exclusive overseas-based squad, with only Rhyan Grant the A-League man on the odd. Australia did perform at its best, winning 3-0 and 1-0 over China and Vietnam, respectively. Yet October promised to be an even harder task for Australia....

This was one of the many images captured from the Mỹ Đình National Stadium, the largest sporting facility in entire Vietnam. You may see this was a football (or soccer) action on the field, yes, the match between Vietnam and Australia during the campaign for Qatar 2022. But, if you keep your eyes closer to the field, you may have to doubt this. I'm talking about Vietnam's widespread state corruption. The Mỹ Đình facilities were built in 2001 as an attempt to refurbish Vietnam's image on its path of economic reintegration following decades of isolation and international sanctions due to the war in Cambodia. And why it was built? Simply, for the 2003 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, by that time the largest sporting event had ever been hosted in the country. There were hopes that Vietnam could be guaranteed a special place for future international competitions in case of any football games scheduled here. The 2003 SEA Games finally broke the barrier and gave the Vietnamese people...

The first match was over. Well, it was not so unexpected for everyone watching. A game that Vietnam lost. Yes, a 1-3 defeat. The only positive thing, surprisingly, was Vietnam being the first team from Southeast Asia to take the lead against Saudi Arabia... in Saudi soil, never happened before in the past of Saudi Arabia when facing Southeast Asian teams in Asian Cup or World Cup qualifications. And Vietnam led for the entire first half and early 10 minutes of the second one. For a country that is struggling to combat the deadly third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, this is the only joy we have. Unfortunately, the next game doesn't seem to be so bright either - it'll be against Australia, an opponent expected to be an even harder nut than Saudi Arabia. Yes, we have been talked about how Vietnam's youth teams played against Australia's counterparts. The edge belongs to the Aussies, still, even though compared to the other major Asian powers, it was slight. And many Vie...

Australia may have been through the third round, but it is no guarantee. It has been a haunting question for the Aussies, long one of Asia's leading football superpowers. Of course, Australia was a bit weird in this qualifier, not in exact perfect form, but somehow, they got a perfect record, eight wins out of eight. Their opponents were also strangely balanced: Nepal and Chinese Taipei were typically the weakest, while Jordan and Kuwait being the most paranoid. Paranoid because of historical record indicated, some aspects, that Australia trailed behind these two opponents. This time, however, Australia beat both of them, albeit Kuwait was weakened by internal strife, while Jordan, Australia's kryptonite, underperformed than what they used to handle Australia back in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. That was not to say Australia had no flaws, but considering how Australia went into this qualification, it was a big improvement. Even during its golden era back in the 2010 qualifiers, Aust...