aussie motorcycle grand prix
11/10/2008
casey stoner leans into a corner during the australian motorcycle grand prix. stoner won the race ahead of valentino rossi. this photo is from yet another amazing series by the boston globe.
australia reach playoffs
15/06/2008
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.