the world cup is permeating everything. i’m listening to above and beyond’s radio show, trance around the world and after just one track, the cup has been mentioned already.

and so, australia take on australia b this evening in stuttgart, needing a win or a draw to advance to the next round for the first time ever. a win guarantees our qualification, whilst a draw relies on japan not beating brazil, and by a fairly healthy margin at that, in order to make up the goal difference. if we lose, we’re out.

disregarding all the cultural connection crap for a while, it shapes up as an interesting game regardless. the physical matchups look very similar, as do the styles of play to my uneducated eye. i’m expecting it to be very close. croatia have the disadvantage of having robert kovac suspended for picking up two yellow cards in previous matches, but australia have defensive problems of their own, with a number of players in defense still carrying yellow cards. we seemed to manage this pretty well against brazil though, and with an english referee more used to the style of play on show in the premier league, hopefully that won’t be an issue.

i still think we’re going to win, and evidently so do a number of croatian ‘experts‘, but i certainly wouldn’t be putting money on it. don’t get me wrong though, i still have faith, but i’m certainly not going to rush in blindly and declare australia as any kind of favourite. it’s going to be really, really close.