The Socceroos took another big stride on the road to South Africa 2010 but got a significant World Cup wake-up call from what captain Lucas Neill described as an “embarrassing” win over Bahrain.

Like thiefs on a cool Manama night, a Mark Bresciano goal in the dying seconds gave Australia a valuable 1-0 away win despite being completely outplayed at the Bahrain International Stadium on Wednesday.

Coach Pim Verbeek called it “the worst performance since I am in Australia” and was unsure why so many players appeared flat after appearing focussed and enthusiastic the day before.

The Socceroos barely had a chance all night and were swamped time after time by attacking surges from their enthusiastic and physical opponents.

“Sometimes you have a few players who are not on their best, and today we had a few more,” said Verbeek.

Somehow, however, Australia stole three points to continue their perfect start to the final stage of qualifiers and put themselves in a commanding position for a World Cup berth.

They now have nine points from three games, to sit two points ahead of Japan, who beat Qatar 3-0, and the two Asian superpowers are pulling away from Qatar (four points), Bahrain and Uzbekistan (both one).

The top two teams in the group automatically qualify but with five matches still to play, the Socceroos collectively agree qualification is far from assured, particularly after their showing against Bahrain.

“It’s almost embarrassing that we’ve won that game,” Neill said.

“There’s a hidden message in this, that if we’re not up to scratch we’re going to struggle against anyone.

“We’ll have to buck up our ideas and find solutions a lot quicker in the game.

“We’re going to Tokyo next to play a really, really tough team (Japan in February) and there’s so much to work on now.”

Verbeek said the performance against Bahrain was a reminder to the Australian public that qualifying out of Asia would be no mean feat.

“Because our first two games (1-0 win over Uzbekistan and 4-0 win over Qatar) were quite good people start to think it’s an easy qualification run,” Verbeek said.

“There are no easy games to get to the World Cup and that showed.

“We cannot play like this against Japan.”

The February 11 clash against the Japanese looms as the most important fixture of the qualifying group so far.

If Australia can manage a win, it would be their third away from home and leave them needing just one win from four remaining matches.

Three of those will be played at home – against Uzbekistan in April and Bahrain and Japan in June – with June’s match with Qatar in Doha the other away fixture.

“We will do everything we possibly can to win the Japan game,” said goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, who was Australia’s best against Bahrain, making several crucial saves.

“The sooner we get the points that get us over the line the better.”

Sadly for Bahrain, the loss to the Socceroos means they now face a mighty task to earn a maiden World Cup finals berth.

“I don’t know what happened, I just can’t explain it,” a shattered Bahrain coach Milan Macala said after the loss.

In the other Asian group, South Korea moved to the top of the table with a 2-0 win over Saudi Arabia while Iran and the United Arab Emirates drew 1-1.

© AAP 2012

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