Australia 5:0 Jamaica

Sean O'Conor

Australia swept aside Jamaica with ease at Craven Cottage in their final game before their do or die World Cup play-off in November.

How much coach Guus Hiddink, who guided Holland to the 1998 semi-final and South Korea to the same stage two years later will have learnt from this whitewash is a moot point: On the last available date before November and with all the European teams in action, it cannot have been easy to have persuaded an already eliminated country from another continent to assemble in London.

As it turned out Jamaica were not as complete pushovers as the scoreline suggests, showing many moments of skill but they looked on the whole like a side who had been eliminated in the earlier stages of the CONCACAF qualifiers instead of one on the verge of a push for the World Cup Finals.

The Australians did have a friendly fixture with Colombia arranged for mid August in London cancelled after coach Frank Farina's departure at the end of June left the Socceroos leaderless. This had been a curious choice of opponent in the first place given that Colombia could still face Australia in the two-legged play off in a few weeks' time.

When Hiddink persuaded the Australian Football Federation and his daily employers PSV Eindhoven that he could manage the job part-time he at once decided to cancel the friendly on the grounds that it would have given Australia's future opponents a free spying session.

Hiddink also made a decisive switch from the 4-4-2 preferred by Farina to 3-5-2 and on the evidence of Sunday's game it is a system that works with the players he has available. It took Australia less than two minutes to find the net as Parma's Mark Bresciano collected the ball in space twenty yards from goal and curled a perfect shot into the postage stamp beyond Jamaica's Shawn Sawyers.

A shell-shocked Jamaica struggled to cope with the contrasting Australian forward line of Middlesboro's burly Mark Viduka and the pacy Archie Thompson, from Melbourne Victory in the fledgling Australian A-League. Frequently they were joined by the roving 25 year old PSV winger Jason Culina, metamorphosing the Aussie formation to a 3-4-3.

On twenty eight minutes the Australians doubled their lead as Culina led a counter attack down the right wing before whipping in a deep cross that Thompson controlled and slotted past Sawyers.

Jamaica had barely got out of their own half but had hinted at better things with a few attacking forays from Ricardo Gardner and Omar Daley before they came close to scoring after thirty five minutes.

Luton Shelton beat Lucas Neill for pace before firing a shot a yard wide of the diving Milan keeper Zeljko Kalac in the Australian goal.

A minute later Culina should have made it 3-0 when set up by Viduka but shot meekly straight into Sawyers' arms. The last action of the half saw Jamaica's centre forward Ricardo Fuller slalom past three defenders four minutes from time before agonizingly falling over when shaping to shoot.

Only a minute after the restart the Socceroos effectively snuffed out any Jamaican thoughts of rebellion with a third goal.

Archie Thompson found space on the left before crossing to Viduka unmarked in the box. The Middlesboro man looked to have lost the ball to one of the defenders sandwiching him before regaining his footing and poking it into the roof of the net.

Jamaica showed some impressive flashes of individual technique but their lack of organization told as their attacks broke down in the last third of the field time and time again. They also displayed a lack of discipline with a couple of reckless tackles that would have surely have caused referee Mike Riley to reach for his cards in a competitive game.

Just before the hour mark the Reggae Boys found themselves four goals down when a combination between Bresciano and substitute John Aloisi allowed the Alaves striker to nip in and score from close range.

The 6,570 crowd of expats at Craven Cottage on this sunny Sunday lunchtime certainly were enjoying the occasion with a string of Mexican waves and the two sets of fans exchanging songs, the Australian end memorably adapting a Bob Marley anthem into a tribute to Mark Viduka.

Five minutes before the final whistle a Jamaican defensive cock-up allowed Jason Griffiths, on his international debut, to nip in and make it five nil to the Socceroos and complete a satisfactory day's work.

Jason Culina, a perpetual nuisance to Jamaica's back line and a creator of several chances was named man of the match.

With the awesome prospect of the winner takes all play off with the fifth-placed South American nation to come, the Australians can at least sleep soundly after this comprehensive win, achieved with a starting eleven that missed regulars goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, skipper Craig Moore and tyro midfielders Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell.

Beyond these well-known Aussies abroad we can now add new aces in the pack in Bresciano, Culina and Thompson, as well as Basel's underrated left winger Scott Chipperfield and Michael Thwaite, a 22 year old centre back for Nacional Bucuresti in Romania who also debuted against Jamaica.

After the game, Jamaican coach Wendall Downswell accepted the scoreline looked bad but drew hope from it at the same time:

“We were expecting a better performance,” he confessed, “and the fact that we conceded that early goal was a major setback for us and just as we came out for the second half we conceded that all important goal but we saw some positive things in patches. We are in a rebuilding process and thinking of 2008.”

Meanwhile, his opposite number Guus Hiddink remained level-headed at an apparently flattering result:

“I think we made an entertaining game for ourselves and for the public,” he told reporters, “but at the same time the question is whether we forced them to be vulnerable or whether they were not as strong as they can be. It was not the strongest team we have opposed.”

When asked by Soccerphile whether the size of the scoreline might frighten their potential November adversaries, Hiddink replied,

“I think in the international game a 5-0 score is a good score but in these games it is more decisive who is not making the little or big errors in defence, midfield or attack.”

And summing up his third game in charge, he concluded,

"I am always critical, but overall the attitude was perfect and it was a very good victory."

Australia: Kalac (Milan), Vidmar (Cardiff) (sub Skoko (Wigan) 53), Neill (Blackburn), Thwaite (Nacional Bucuresti), Chipperfield (Basel), Bresciano (Parma) (sub Cahill), Emerton (Blackburn) (sub Grella (Parma) 70), Wilkshire (Bristol City) (sub Elrich (Fulham 79), Culina (PSV), Thompson (Melbourne) (sub Griffiths (Neuchatel Xamax) 70), Viduka (Middlesboro) (sub Aloisi (Alaves) 57).

Jamaica: Sawyers, Damien Stewart (sub Fabian Stewart 64), Marshall, Davis, Finlayson (sub Breakenridge 53), Johnson (sub Ralph 50), Gardner, Daley, Scarlett (sub Reid 53), Fuller (sub Morrison 66), Shelton

Goals: Bresciano 2, Thompson 28, Viduka 47, Aloisi 59, Griffiths 85

Images © Sean O'Conor

Sean O'Conor

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