Bloody hopeless

Genclerbirligi's Nick Carle in training in Bangkok. Has anyone told Gencler that it appears we have signed a rugby player? (Photo nicked from the SMH)

Only four days late this time with the latest news concerning the Socceroos, the stupid name that we give to our national football team (why can't we just call them something revolutionary like "Australia").

We would have been much quicker with the news had it been slightly more positive. Instead it was almost a total disaster.

Australia 1 - 1 Oman

It was the first round of the Asian Cup (no doubt you have all been overwhelmed by the press coverage the tournament is receiving both here in Turkey and all over Europe) and Australia were not only overwhelming favourites to win the first match but are also, along with Japan, favourites to win the Cup. If we do go all the way it will be the first meaningful trophy we have ever won.

So Australia are ranked 48th according to Fifa. Oman are 74th. Should have been a breeze. We have footballers playing at some of the best clubs in Europe, well, Harry Kewell is contracted to Liverpool but I'm not sure just how much playing he has been doing lately.

Having failed to find any Kankas with the Hotbird satellite system I spent Sunday afternoon searching all over the internet for a feed of the game... any sort of feed, radio would have been fine. I even rang my Mum to get her to turn on the computer and have her Skype the TV commentary (with no pictures) through to me only to discover that since my brother moved out they had cancelled their subscription to Fox Sports.

After hours of tearing my hair out I finally found a site with a feed of Vietnamese state TV. Sure I had a little trouble understanding the finer points of the match analysis but at least I got to watch a bit of the football. Although half the time the video feed stuffed up and I really did have to rely on trying to understand the commentary.

Have to admit though that the half-time entertainment from the Vietnamese TV studio was top class. Think of Turkey's entries to the Eurovision song contest in the early 1980s and you've got an idea.

Unlike the flamin' galah Sheilaroos. What a load of absolute rubbish.

Defence, crap. If it wasn't for Mark Schwarzer in goal we could have had four more goals scored against us.

Midfield. Non existent.

Up Front. Mark Viduka has clearly not adjusted to the conditions. Or perhaps he has been eating too many pies recently.

It was getting very desperate when Tim Cahill finally allowed me to calm down just a tad when he scored an equaliser in injury time.

The only good thing to come out the match is that there will probably be some changes to our match against Thailand on Friday with Australian newspapers speculating that Genclerbirligi's new signing Nick Carle could get a run.

But it was all very depressing and I wasn't going to bother with a report at all until I read a letter in The Guardian's daily football e-mail, from where I steal most of the ideas for my so-called humour - the rest of the humourous ideas come from Private Eye and the sports pages of the Turkish Daily News.

"Keep bagging the Socceroos mate. We love it. If my life depended on Australia winning the Asian Cup and yours on England winning Euro 2008, guess who'd be first to shake hands with Elvis?" wrote Endre Iberer.

And with that bit of Pom bashing I'm a much happier man. Victory over Thailand on Friday and then the powerhouse that is Iraq next week and we are into the next round. Bring it on.

EDIT: It's Australia v Iraq on Friady, not Thailand as I just saw that Thailand beat Oman 2-0. That really puts our draw into perspective.