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the socceroos have taken the lead in their world cup qualifying group after a convincing 4-0 drubbing of qatar in lang park. australia have won both of our opening games and lead the group with 6 points,  followed by japan and qatar with 4 points each.

coach verbeek warned the socceroos not to be complaciant against qatar, despite 3-0 and 3-1 victories against them previously. and despite giving qatar more possession, australia’s defense remained inpenetrable.

tim cahill, returning from a long injury, opened the scoring after just 9 minutes. cahill has a history of terrorising asian nations after his two goals gave australia victory over japan in the last world cup. brett emerton doubled the lead 10 minutes later with a penalty.

emerton had a good game and was in the thick of the action. he got his second, and australia’s third, after the break. josh kennedy added to qatar’s woes with a late header.

qatar had a few shots on goal, but couldn’t get a breakthrough.

despite the good start, the socceroos still have a long way to go and are rightly cautious about their good form. the team played well, despite the absence of kewell, viduka and bresciano.

now the team looks to their november 19th game away to bahrain.

in other matches, japan drew with uzbekistan, blowing their chances of staying level with australia. south korea, after a run of mediocre form, turned on a 4-1 victory over uae. the koreans now top their group, but saudi arabia and north korea are level on points.

the aussie football team have scored a surprise win against the netherlands in a friendliy overnight. the netherlands drew first blood after just 5 minutes, thanks to good work by liverpool winger ryan babel who set up the goal. it seemed to be all down hill from there. josh kennedy, however, was having a good game and working hard up front. he earned a penalty and had the dutch goal keeper sent off with a red card. former red, harry kewell, converted the spot kick, leveling the scores.

the aussies continued to hold their own, thanks to the extra man, and it was kennedy again who found himself in the right place, heading home a beautiful wiltshire cross.

the socceroos have made the most of their warmup and look to wednesday’s clash with uzbekistan in the world cup qualifiers. last night, uzubekistand were convincingly beaten by qatar 3-0, so there’s no reason why the socceroos shouldn’t take full points.

the reds have kept with tradition, barely managing to put away belgian team standard liege at anfield last night. the visitors had nothing to lose and played gritty football. they had two good chances denied thanks to the great work of pepe reina. liverpool couldn’t seem to find their paces and the game went into overtime, in search of a result. dirk kuyt came to liverpool’s rescue, side footing in a close range ball to give the reds victory.

tonight liverpool will discover their three opponents for the champions league group matches. fortunately, all four english teams have been seeded, meaning that we cannot be grouped with man u, chelsea or arsenal. however some very strong teams are in the mix, including barca, juventus, madrid and inter milan. none of the other teams look that threatening.

in other news, former liverpool winger and aussie international harry kewell has been finding some decent form at his new club galatasaray. he scored on his debut and socceroos coach verbeek has praised kewell’s return to form. harry will be included in the squad to face uzbekistan in september. hopefully he can stay on his feet this season, helping the aussies into our second consecutive world cup.

as usual, transfer season is dramas and bitchiness all round. liverpool have been doing a good job at staying in the thick of it with their deals involving garreth barry and peter crouch. barry is in the shithouse with villa, after criticising the club and then being fined and banned from the premesis. villa will sell barry, but now it’s a mudslugging mess with the only thing left to decide is the value of the inform midfielder. xabi alonso will probably depart the club to make way for barry, with juventus seeming the most likely suitor. barry and alonso will probably fetch about the same price, with will suit benitez.

peter crouch seems likely to depart soon with portsmouth reluctantly ponying up 10 million for the striker. not a bad return on a man who lived on liverpool’s bench, for whom we paid 6 million. pompey don’t want to pay that much, but poo are holding out and look likely to get their asking price.

riise, as reported, as left for as roma.

on the aussie front, kewell’s inevitable departure has been made official as he heads to the far east, joining turkish champions galatasaray. personally, i was surprised that he took the offer from the turkish club, thinking that he might want to stay closer to england, however it might prove to be a good decision … and it also means that i might get a chance to see harry play. interestingly, galatasaray have also said they’re interested in lucas neill. which would give them 2 aussie players.

poo have done a little bit of spending. defender philipp degan comes to anfield on a free transfer. the 25 year old swiss player was with borussia dortmund. the reds have also bought andrea dosenna, an italian left back who will replace riise. benitez has also got his eye on yet another keeper, brazilian dieg cavalieri.

it appears that liverpool were interested in tottenham’s robbie keane, but that rumour seems to have gone cold … which is a shame, cause he’s a good player with a proven record in the premier league.

finally, the two biggest players to be discussed this transfer season, christiano ronaldo and ronaldhino, are still in the air about who they’ll represent next season. ronaldo is desperate to join real madrid, while chelsea and manchester city have been left cold by ronaldhino’s courtship by ac milan. it would have been great to see ronaldhino play in england, but definitely not against liverpool. ronaldo, too, i hope goes to madrid … it’s heartbreaking to watch him tear up the premier league every week.

the socceroos have beaten qatar 3-1 to reach the asian playoff group, which is the final step to qualifying for the 2010 world cup. the aussies traveled to doha looking for an opportunity to bounce back from the stun loss to iraq. the socceroos played much better football. australia was almost at full strength. kewell, emerton, bresciano and culina played. scott mcdonald was on the bench but didn’t play. the only notable absentees were viduka, lucas neill and tim cahill. brett emerton played further up front in a much more attacking role. he was rewarded with two goals. harry kewell nabbed australia’s third. mark schwarzer made some good saves to deny the qatari players, however the home side did manage to break their duck with a late consolation goal.

the socceroos will join a pool of 9 other teams to play in 2 groups of 5 teams. from there, the top 2 teams from each group go through to the world cup and the 3rd place teams play off against each other. the winner of that game plays against the winner of oceania. the winner of that match will also go through to the world cup. although one game remains, australia, bahrain, japan, north korea, south korea, uzbekistan, saudi arabia and iran are already through to the round robin group. iraq/qatar and uae/syria contest the last two places.