Australia hopes of a clinching a round-of-16 berth are not yet dead as they stunned Tunisia 1-0 at the Al Janoub Stadium to record their first win at the World Cup since 2010. Tunisia completely changed their approach in the second half of the game also thanks to a tactical change from coach Jalel Kadri who replaced Mohamed Drager with Ferjani Sassi. The Associated Press has the story:
Australia Scored a Crucial Win 1-0 against Tunisia
Newslooks- (AP)
Australia net three crucial points ahead of last match as Socceroos won 1-0 against Tunisia on Saturday for the first game of Group D Matchday 2 at World Cup. Australia had a better start to the match and kept the ball for the majority of the first twenty minutes as Mitchell Duke managed to score a stunning header that completely changed the match afterwards. Tunisia struggled to keep the ball and some key mistakes didn’t help as well. The first half ended with Tunisia having two big opportunities with Mohamed Drager and striker Youssef Msakni but failed both times in front of Australian goalkeeper Mathew Ryan.
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Tunisia completely changed their approach in the second half of the game also thanks to a tactical change from coach Jalel Kadri who replaced Mohamed Drager with Ferjani Sassi who managed to change the attitude of the African side when they were in control of the ball. The African side constantly applied pressure, however, their passing mistakes prevented them from creating more chances. The second half didn’t give us a lot of emotions until the last minutes of stoppage time, when Tunisia created at least three big opportunities to score the equalizer but Australia were able to keep the clean sheet with a very solid and organized defensive system.
After this win Australia are now fully in the race to access to the found of 16 at World Cup, as they will play their last match of the group stage against Denmark on Wednesday at 10 a.m., while at the same time France will face Tunisia. Everything is still open in this group with one more game to play.
