You Cannot Stop Tim Cahill, You Can Only Hope to Contain Him

And Japan didn’t.

In front of nearly 70,000 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground – Australia came back from a 0-1 halftime deficit to see Tim Cahill score twice in the second half to top Japan 2-1. With the victory, Australia now sits atop the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup.

I made my way to The G well before kickoff – arriving at 7:30 pm for a late 8:20 pm kickoff – just to take in the atmosphere. Melbourne has a pretty sizeable Japanese student population – and they came out to support their team in force.

But, um, it was a little unstable.

I saw not one, but two young Japanese male fans dressed as…um…well, there’s really no other way to say it…

Kamikazes

It was very, very unstable – and I think I did a triple take.

Is 65 years a little too soon?

Anyway – the game was great, the atmosphere terrific, and I am now even more excited for the South Africa trip. I was sitting in the nosebleeds with several friends – without Herrmann of course – he had a “conference” for the “tourism industry” and “couldn’t make it.”

Whatever.

I had the 1974 retro Australia jersey – the first time the team played in the World Cup and an Aussie soccer scarf I bought back in 2006 when Australia played Greece in a pre-Germany 2006 friendly. I can’t wait to wear them again.

I’m fully onboard the Aussie bandwagon and can’t wait for South Africa.

Oh, and one other thing to the FGOC guys. I say we offer a few ground rules for the World Cup.

#1: There will be an official one beer penalty for anyone that participates in the Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi cheer. Terrible.