By Valkerie Mangnall
September 7th 2008 @ 8:42am
Australia beats Dutch in World Cup qualifier warm-up
A timely header by Josh Kennedy helped Australia to a 2-1 friendly victory over the world’s fourth-ranked soccer team, the Netherlands, in the Dutch city of Eindhoven last night.
England, Portugal struggle in first World Cup games
In an encouraging result ahead of this week’s World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan, the Socceroos - ranked 35 places lower than the Dutch - equalised with a Harry Kewell penalty after the home team went ahead through Klaas Jan Huntelaar in the sixth minute.
Kennedy then got Australia’s second goal in the 76th minute.
Hours before the match, Eindhoven’s market square was awash in a sea of orange-clad fans and they completely swamped a small band of Australian supporters as they whipped Philips Stadium into party mode.
It wasn’t long before the home crowd had something to cheer about on the pitch.
With just over five minutes having elapsed, Huntelaar latched onto a perfectly weighted cross by Liverpool’s Ryan Babel and drilled his left-footed shot past diving Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer.
But the joy of the Oranje fans turned to consternation when, on the stroke of half-time, Dutch custodian Maarten Stekelenburg was shown a red card after bringing Australian striker Kennedy down in the box.
That forced Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk into an immediate substitution, bringing in replacement keeper Henk Timmer for Huntelaar.
But Kewell beat Timmer with the penalty and the teams went to the interval at 1-1.
Australian coach Pim Verbeek made some changes at the break, bringing on Mark Bresciano for Kewell and replacing Brett Emerton with Mile Sterjovski.
On the hour mark, Schwarzer saved a free kick by Rafael van der Vaart from just outside the box.
With 20 minutes remaining, Verbeek called in Bruce Djite for Brett Holman and Michael Beauchamp for Chris Coyne.
Kennedy broke the deadlock after a great cross from Luke Wilkshire allowed him to head comfortably past Timmer.
Netherlands substitute Dirk Kuyt missed the chance to draw level when his close-range shot hit a diving Schwarzer in injury time.
Australia travel to Tashkent to face Uzbekistan in Asia group qualifying for the 2010 World Cup on Wednesday (early Thursday AEST).
Free Email updates:
Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...
