World Cup: Crazy on the streets of Melbourne at 3am for Australia qualifiers

Far, far away from Qatar, where the Tunisians celebrated Khazri’s goal in the 58th minute of the match against the Blues, thinking it would open their way to qualifying, thousands of Australians gathered in the center of Melbourne watched football clubs on giant screens. against Denmark. The goal allowed them to bypass Tunisia and accompany France to the round of 16. He arrived two minutes later. At the 60th minute, Matthew Lecky. At this point it was 3am in Melbourne, but the madness had already gripped the Australians.

Second in Group D to the Blues (on goal difference), but ahead of Tunisia, whom they beat in the previous match (1-0), Australia have only qualified once from the group stage, in 2006 in Germany. Then she was stopped in the 1/8 finals by Italy (1:0), the future world champion.

“It’s so much emotion,” began Matthew Leckie, scorer. We want to dream big and we said when we arrived that we wanted to do the first round. Now it’s done. Now there is another game. Now the most important thing is to be ready. Many players are exhausted, but this is exactly what was needed today to get the result. We did not control what was happening in the other match (Tunisia-France), we had to win, we arrived with a good attitude to win, we played our game, and I think it is deserved. Playing in the World Cup was a dream when I was young. We hope to be an inspiration to the youth. »

After an embarrassing 4-1 defeat to the Blues in the opening scoring, the Australians faltered late in the match as the Danes pushed hard to level the score. After the final whistle, smoke bombs were lit in Melbourne.

“I’m so proud that we were able to bring smiles to people’s faces, this is the first time that an Australian team has won two matches in a row at the World Cup,” said Australia coach Graham Arnold at a press conference: We can talk about a new golden generation. We talked a lot about the golden generation of 2006, which scored four points, we scored six. I am very proud of the young players in the team, the guys are getting stronger and stronger, but at the same time, the more experienced players have also grown a lot to become leaders. Matthew Leckie was great, you can see the drive in his eyes. And that’s good for Asia. Asian football is getting stronger and stronger, especially in the Middle East, but also in Japan, South Korea. »

At 6 am in Melbourne, thousands of supporters were still dancing in the streets of Melbourne.