Socceroos win Asian Cup opener
January 9, 2015
Hosts Australia survived an early scare against Kuwait before goals from Tim Cahill, Massimo Luongo, Mile Jedinak and James Troisi gave them a 4-1 win in the opening game of the 2015 Asian Cup.
A passionate crowd at the sold-out Melbourne Rectangular Stadium was in high spirits after watching an opening ceremony with a beach and water theme that included hip-hop music and indigenous dancers. That crowd soon fell quiet though, after Hussain Fadhel headed home from a corner for Kuwait after only eight minutes.
Australia's nervous start had been punished, but they fought back immediately and soon enough their pressure paid off. Cahill lashed in a Luongo cross shortly after the half-hour mark. A minute before the break, Luongo turned goalscorer as he headed from an Ivan Franjic cross to score his first international goal. Captain Jedinak scored a second-half penalty before Troisi added some gloss to the scoreline in injury time.
Borussia Dortmund's Mitch Langerak was an unused substitute, but Leverkusen's Robbie Kruse and Ingolstadt's Matthew Leckie both started. The win puts Australia top of Group A. South Korea face Oman in the group's other match in Canberra on Saturday.
The 2015 Asian Cup will see sixteen of the continent's top teams compete over three weeks in front of more than half a million spectators, organizers estimate. The worldwide television audience is expected to exceed 700 million viewers for Australia's biggest ever soccer event.
jh/asz, al (dpa, Reuters)