2.0 - 2.0 = Soccer 2.0

I expected Zeljko Kalac at time to bust into a metal toothy grin a la Jaws, as he was the villain of the piece in Australia's World Cup game against Croatia. His howler to let through the second goal was the culmination of a terrible performance in goal, inexplicably brought in to replace our star goalie Mark Schwarzer. At 2-1 down, it was looking like soccer 1.0 would triumph. The old ethnic rivalries were showing, since Kalac is of Croatian descent and the SBS colour commentators Rale Rasic and Ned Zelic, both Croatian, were making some hella lame excuses for their boy and not screaming, as most Aussies were, about why the German-sourced Schwarzer wasn't on the pitch instead.

However the face of soccer 2.0, Harry Kewell, who while not possessing a thick Australian accent at least does not call anywhere other than Australia the mother country, was the hero with a late equaliser to put us through to the second round. For all the times Kewell had blown off the national team, this was the payoff. I feel sorry for Brett Emerton, though - he has rarely said no to Socceroo duties and earned 51 caps compared to Harry's 23, yet Emerton's late cards will disqualify him from playing in the Italy game. We'll miss his tireless work ethic.

I also won a bet on this game on a Web forum which I frequent: a crazy Surinamean called Karel Donk promised to stop posting links to 9/11 conspiracy videos for a whole week. Joker, suck it down! :P

Australia, Australia, Australia, you bewdy.