Key events
27 min South Korea are starting to have a bit of joy down their left, a concern expressed by Matthew Stephens in the third minute. But Mat Ryan still hasn’t had a save to make, which continues a theme of the whole tournament. Australia’s opponents have had only four attempts on target in six and a half hours of football; it’s probably seven hours if you include added time.
23 min This is startting to come to life – both the quality of attacking play and the burgeoning needle.
21 min: Fine defending from Souttar! The centre-back Kim Young-gwon finds an eye in the Socceroos needle, threading a lovely disguised pass through the inside-left channel to find Hwang in the area. His first touch is slightly heavy, which allows Souttar to come across and make a vital challenge.
19 min: Chance for Metcalfe! Goodwin collects a loose ball just outside the area, shifts the ball onto his left foot and drives a deflected shot across goal. Jo-Hyeon woo dives to his left to push it away and Metcalfe knocks the rebound well wide from about 10 yards. Although it came at him quickly, that was a pretty good opportunity.
19 min “Good morning from gloomy Indianapolis, Rob!” says Joe Pearson. “Having watched both teams progress through the tournament, a Korea win seems the more likely result. They have a little better cutting edge, I think. But what do I know?”
Nothing, same as the rest of us.
17 min Metcalfe receives a square pass 25 yards from goal to the right of centre. His first touch is lovely but he drags a low shot wide of the near post with his second.
16 min Irvine catches Hwang In-beom with a high boot and then gives him a mouthful while he’s on the floor. That leads to a brief exchange of views with a mildly aghast Son Heung-min before the referee tells everyone to disperse.
Australia have had only 20 per cent possession so far.
15 min The Bayern Munich centre-back Kim Min-jae takes matters into his own hands with a barnstorming run down the right. His cross is too close to Ryan.
13 min Baccus gets a warning after flooring Hwang. I like this referee, who seemst to have a natural, relaxed authority.
12 min Australia haven’t yet offered anything in attack as yet. Jackson Irvine is playing deeper than he did in the first four games, so their formation is closer to 4-2-3-1 than 4-1-4-1.
9 min Korea are dominating the ball, which is a reversal of Australia’s first four games. They’re yet to create anything, though. This already feels like a game that could go the distance.
7 min “I’m in the US, so I watched the USA v Sweden women’s World Cup match at 2am my time,” writes Harriet Osborn. “I’d done the same thing to watch our awful draw with Portugal as well (that was boring enough I went back to bed right after!) The RO16 match was fun and exciting – it was the best the team had played the entire tournament, and my hope built through the match that we really were going to beat them this time. (Oh, right, the last time the USA women played Sweden, we lost 3-0 at the Tokyo Olympics, which I had also woken up at a horrible hour to watch!)
“It went to extra time and penalties of course, and I had entirely too much adrenaline and anger by the end to go back to sleep. Made for a rotten day after so thank goodness I was off work. Never would have thought at the start of the tournament that a RO16 match against our bogey team would merit writing in about as being “a huge match” watched in the small hours…
“What a privilege it is that US-based fans have to do this so rarely. And we complain about Premier League matches kicking off at 6:30am.”
5 min Son breaks at a backpedalling Australian defence and plays a good pass out to Hwang on the left. His low cross is booted away. It’s vital that Baccus doesn’t allow Son to find space between the lines like that.
4 min Nothing to report yet. Jurgen Klinsmann is patrolling the touchline in a black hoodie. I miss 2006.
3 min “Atkinson is a real concern defensively against the pace of South Korea,” says Matthew Stephens. “Expecting a lot of their attack to go down that side.”
2 min As expected, South Korea have reverted to a 4-2-3-1 formation.
1 min Peep peep! Korea kick off from right to left as we watch.
A reminder of the teams
Australia (4-1-4-1) Ryan; Atkinson, Souttar, Rowles, Behich; Baccus, Irvine; Boyle, Metcalfe, Goodwin; Duke.
Substitutes: Bos, Silvera, Fornaroli, Yengi, Tilio, Thomas, O’Neill, McGree, Gauci, Miller, Burgess, Yazbek.
South Korea (possible 4-2-3-1) Jo Hyeon-woo; Kim Tae-hwan, Kim Min-jae, Kim Young-gwon, Seol Young-woo; Park Yong-woo, Hwang In-beom; Lee Kang-in, Son Heung-min, Hwang Hee-chan; Cho Gue-sung.
Substitutes: Lee Ki-je, Kim Jin-su, Hong Hyun-seok, Lee Jae-sung, Song Bum-keun, Lee Soon-min, Jeong Seung-hyeon, Park Jin-seop, Jeong Woo-yeong, Oh Hyeon-gyu, Kim Ji-soo, Yang Hyun-jun.
Referee Ahmed Al-Kaf (Oman).
“G’day Rob,” writes Chris Paraskevas, whose love of the Socceroos and Newcastle United isn’t conducive to consistent sleep patterns. “A criminal 2.30am kick off this morning, and at such uncivilised hours one can only but think of how massive this game is to ‘Arnie’s legacy: this is literally the equivalent fixture (sort of) in which Ange Postecoglou wrote his own Subway Socceroos Legacy.
“And you know what? It’s got nothing to do with the result. Nothing to do with the performance. Nothing to do with whether that good ‘ol Aussie Fight™️ is on show.
“Legacies are all about one thing: whether your career produced a piece of Youtube High Art for generations to repeatedly digest. For Ange, we have the quintessential ‘Ange vs Craig’ video: a national cultural and sporting touchstone.
“Arnie’s equivalent? The underrated and underwatched ‘Arnie v Peacock’.”
Here come the players, all looking very business-like. For the first time in Australia’s tournament, this has the feel of a proper game.
“Hoping for a bit of quality from the Roos tonight,” writes Martin Turnbull. “A one-goal win for Oz, in normal time.”
What’s it like watching such a huge game in the small hours? The closest experience I’ve had watching the 2018 World Cup semi-final between Croatia and England at 2am in Perth, though I’ve never been that patriotic so it wasn’t the be-all and end-all.
This time, more than any other time…
Team news: Goodwin in for Bos
Graham Arnold has made four changes from the team that started against Indonesia. Gethin Jones is injured, so Nathaniel Atkinson comes in at right-back. Mitch Duke is fit to start up front in place of Bruno Fornaroli. The two injury-unrelated changes are in the attacking midfield positions: Connor Metcalfe and Craig Goodwin are preferred to Riley McGree and Jordy Bos.
South Korea have changed three players, and possibly their system, after beating Saudi Arabia on penalties. Park Yong-woo, Cho Gue-sung and Hwang Hee-chan come in for Kim Young-gwon, Lee Jae-sung and Jeong Woo-yeong
Australia (4-1-4-1) Ryan; Atkinson, Souttar, Rowles, Behich; Baccus; Boyle, Metcalfe, Irvine, Goodwin; Duke.
Substitutes: Bos, Silvera, Fornaroli, Yengi, Tilio, Thomas, O’Neill, McGree, Gauci, Miller, Burgess, Yazbek.
South Korea (possible 4-2-3-1) Jo Hyeon-woo; Kim Tae-hwan, Kim Min-jae, Kim Young-gwon, Seol Young-woo; Park Yong-woo, Hwang In-beom; Lee Kang-in, Son Heung-min, Hwang Hee-chan; Cho Gue-sung.
Substitutes: Lee Ki-je, Kim Jin-su, Hong Hyun-seok, Lee Jae-sung, Song Bum-keun, Lee Soon-min, Jeong Seung-hyeon, Park Jin-seop, Jeong Woo-yeong, Oh Hyeon-gyu, Kim Ji-soo, Yang Hyun-jun.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the start of Australia’s Asian Cup campaign. Yes, I know they’re already played four games, but all things being equal they were always going to get past India, Syria, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. This match, a potential humdinger of a quarter-final against South Korea, brings a whole new level of difficulty.
It’s the tie of the round (probably) and a repeat of the 2015 final (definitely). James Troisi scored an extra-time winner in Sydney to continue South Korea’s frankly inexplicable wait for a third Asian Cup. They won the first two tournaments in 1956 and 1960. Since then nada. Zilch. The square root of bugger all. They’ve lost four finals in that time, most recently in 2015.
Whoever wins today will be strong favourites to reach this year’s final, with Jordan waiting in the semis. They beat Tajikistan 1-0 earlier today.
Australia need to play better than in their first four games, when they often struggled to break down deep-lying defences. In a perverse way, playing against better opposition might help them. Graham Arnold will certainly hope so: if Australia go out today, the tournament will have been an undeniable failure.
Kick off 6.30pm local / 2.30am AEDT / 3.30pm GMT.