Australia became the first team from the Asian region and only the second in the world after the Netherlands to book a place at next summer’s World Cup in South Africa. Participating for the first time from the tough and diverse Asian Football Confederation, Australia had to come through two tough rounds of qualification to secure their place in the flight to South Africa next June. The qualification was secured on June 5 at Doha when the Socceroos played out a goalless draw with Qatar.

The previous round saw Pim Verbeek’s men get through the ‘Group of Death’ by seeing off Asian champions Iraq and continental giants China PR. The team has really been helped by Australia’s Europe-based players as Dutchman Pim Verbeek relied on the countries overseas players to steer the nation through a tough regional qualifying process. Many criticized the Australian coach for being too defensive and his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation was dubbed dull and uninspiring yet this same policy maintained a fantastic defensive record for the Socceroos and ultimately an inspired qualifying campaign that resulted in Lucas Neill and company remaining unbeaten in the fourth and final round with six wins out of eight and conceding just a single goal yet scoring twelve goals, finishing ahead of Japan. Not bad for a team and its manager who were criticized for being too opportunistic rather than entertaining. Well, here is a manager that is clear in his tactics and to whom only positive results matter not the manner of achieving them. This attitude has rubbed on to the shoulders of the Australian players and for once Tim Cahill and Lucas Neill have agreed that Pim Verbeek’s uncharacteristic no-nonsense managerial style would be more successful than Guus Hiddink.