According to the broadcast, this pitch was laid only three weeks ago and hasn’t been tested yet by a game of football. This is the first one on it, and it comes just five days after Pope Francis held mass here for a crowd of over 80,000. You can see from the opening exchanges that the ball isn’t rolling truly across this bumpy surface, and it also looks a little bit slippery too. It’s not hard to imagine a mistake deciding this…
Meanwhile, Sam Silvera has just had a cross deflected out for a corner, which will be the first of the match for the Socceroos. It’ll be taken by Goodwin, with his left foot this’ll be an inswinger. Can he find one of the big tall defenders in the box? It does find Mitch Duke at the near post but it goes out for a goal kick… he’s incensed, because he thinks it’s come off an Indonesian player, and the replay suggests he has a case. That should be a second corner for Australia…
Indonesia 0-0 Australia, 13 minutes
Source Agencies
