Australia v Croatia

This is a little late, but good lord what a strange game. I can't believe Croatia played the game they did against Brazil then played the way they did against Japan and Australia.

Dario Srna's free kick in the second minute was a pretty beautiful shot, over the corner of the wall and curving back into the corner of the goal, staying out of the keeper's reach. An early lead looked great for Croatia to take control of their destiny. It looked like a great game... but unfortunately, this game had Graham Poll as a referee.

I swear I thought Poll was famous in England for being an idiot who ruined games, so I was surprised they sent him to Germany. He did help the Croatians out a few minutes in when Mark Viduka was tackled in the box, and I actually mean tackled in an American or Aussie Rules football sense of the word: two arms wrapped around him from behind and dragged to the ground. No need to interrupt the flow of the game for that, I guess, so no obvious penalty shot for Australia. I thought Harry Kewell was going to help out the Croats too by trying to make a name for himself taking them all on at once, but he got a clue at some point. His nicest shot was one that the keeper got behind but couldn't hold on to because of the power Kewell put on it, but nobody stepped up for Australia to play the rebound.

In the 38th minute, Poll found his whistle when he had two fouls in the box to call, Cahill getting mugged by Croatia and a clear handball. Moore sent the keeper the wrong way and scored the penalty for Australia, to tie things up. Not every handball in the box resulted in a whistle, though, Poll really missed a lot of the action. He did send off Brett Emerton for yet another handball late in the game, so this game really was looking out of control as far as players respecting the rules (or the ref). Eventually Dario Simic and Josep Simunic would both be sent off for Croatia, so we got another ridiculous 9 on 10 game with an inept ref. The classic thing is Simunic was sent off after getting his 3rd yellow card of the game. Why he was on the field with two I have no idea. This is a reason to root for England, because refs from countries that do well can't ref the later stages of the tournament, hence the smiling ref from the UAE and Anders Frisk of Sweden getting a lot of games late in tournaments.

In the second half, Croatia scored when Aussie keeper, Kalac, just absolutely blew a shot by Nico Kovac, letting the ball roll up over him and into the goal. This really fueled an ongoing controversy over Guus Hiddink's choice to start Kalac over Mark Schwarzer in goal, because Kalac looked terrible many, many times in this game, even if this was the piece de resistance.

Australia's second goal was nice, both Kewell and Viduka were offside. Kewell took the shot, Viduka was right in front of the keeper, so really either one could have warranted the offside flag. Kewell was borderline, and Viduka could conceivably have been called passive offside, but that's a lot of maybes for the goal that sent Croatia home. Actually there was one more goal for Australia, but Poll blew the whistle to end the game while Australia had the ball in their opponent's box and a player was taking a shot, which really capped off the case for him being completely out of his mind.

Australia advances to play Italy in the 2nd round, Brazil plays Ghana, and Croatia and Japan go home.

Australia 2-2 Croatia
'2 Srna
'38 Moore (pen)
'57 Kovac
'79 Kewell

Red Cards: Simunic, Simic, Emerton

Brazil 4 - 1 Japan
'34 Tamada
'45 Ronaldo
'53 Juninho
'60 Gilberto
'81 Ronaldo

I have no idea how Japan took an early lead or how this game went, but apparently Ronaldo has tied Gerd Muller for most goals scored in the history of the world cup, passing along the way Pele and Just Fontaine.