Sometimes, the best way to describe a game of football is to compare it to the twists and turns of a rollercoaster. But even that doesn’t quite feel like it captures the insanity that was Australia’s 2-2 draw with Bahrain. In Riffa, the Socceroos lurched from a position of relative comfort to one of cataclysmic collapse and then to a miraculous escape across the course of 90 bizarre minutes. And perhaps most remarkably of all, they now sit outright second in Group C of Asian qualifying with their hopes of reaching the 2026 World Cup in their own hands.
It all appeared to be going straightforwardly. Holding onto a 1-0 lead delivered just 38 seconds into the game when Kusini Yengi pounced on a disastrous attempted backpass by Sayed Baqer, the Socceroos weren’t fully comfortable as the game wore on but they at least looked well-placed to take away a second win of this phase of qualification. Defending has long been this side’s consistent strength, and they had looked mostly at ease in repelling the hosts’ attempts to find a leveller at the Bahrain National Stadium.
But then in the 75th minute came a sudden, lurching twist. A regulation ball forward deflected off the thigh of an awkwardly positioned Cameron Burgess and into the path of Mahdi Abduljabbar. The substitute was all of 45 yards out from goal but with Mat Ryan – back in the XI as one of six changes from the 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia – in an advanced, sweeper-keeper position there was an opening. He took it with aplomb, lofting the ball over the keeper’s head, under the crossbar and into the back of the net to level proceedings. It was a stunning goal. What came next was almost a knockout one.
Just moments after the restart, Mahdi Al-Humaidan got down the left flank and sent in an awkward, in-swinging cross that debutant Hayden Mathews was only able to get a glancing touch on, taking it beyond Ryan’s desperate dive and onto the post. Waiting for the ball was Abduljabbar, who tucked the ball into an open net to make it 2-1.
In the blink of an eye, Bahrain had gone from the bottom of Group C to second place – and an automatic qualification slot for the World Cup – while Australia had been knocked down to third, and their campaign was suddenly teetering on a knife edge. Instantly, the urgency that had accompanied the hosts’ efforts to get back into the game left them. They were the same tactics that had frustrated and confounded the Socceroos in their 1-0 loss to Bahrain on the Gold Coast two months prior and, once again, despite a change in coach, they had once again put themselves in a position where they could be used against them.
Still, though, Australia desperately searched for a leveller and remarkably there was to be one final twist on this wild ride, one more loop the loop, when in the 96th minute, a Brandon Borello header from an Aiden O’Neill cross deflected out to the six-yard box, with Yengi reacting quickest to turn the ball into the back of the net and make it 2-2. He could have easily had four goals on the evening but at last, he had his second.
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The draw means that Popovic’s side will return from the Gulf not only in second place in the group but in outright possession of it for the first time during this campaign. With Indonesia stunning Saudi Arabia and Japan beating China, the Socceroos sit on seven points, a point clear of a trailing pack consisting of four sides on six points. You’d likely go mad if you tried to make sense of it all.
