Australia’s rollicking 2-2 draw with Bahrain was another surprise result in one of the most bonkers World Cup qualifying groups ever seen.
Good luck trying to make sense of that after Wednesday morning’s dramatic 2-2 draw with Bahrain; the second half alone swung from a blissful dream scenario to a living, breathing nightmare, and then back to an excruciatingly familiar purgatory.If you didn’t watch it, you missed out on entertainment and pain in equal measure.
But Bahrain came out hot in the second half, and moments after Yengi screwed a chance to make it 2-0 at one end, an unfortunate deflection off Cameron Burgess’ admittedly heavy touch near the halfway line set up the equaliser. The ball fell beautifully for substitute Mahdi Abduljabbar, who looked up, spotted Maty Ryan off his line and lobbed him from 40 metres out. A freak goal.
“We showed a lot of character to come back and get an important point. Apart from Japan, everyone else is taking points off each other. I think it’s the story of the group … but we find ourselves in second place, a point in front of the group.Is Yengi the striker the Socceroos have been looking for? “It was good,” Popovic said of Yengi’s display. “He’s there to score goals so getting a couple of goals ... I’d have liked him to score the chance at 1-0 when the ball was cut back, because that would have been game over.”Yengi probably has the best shot at becoming Australia’s main man up front - he’s the right age, the right build, and clearly has a bit of X-factor about him - but he needs to sharpen up his game a little more and find greater consistency.
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