My initial thoughts after the game

A letter I sent to Football365, a site I read a fair bit. They have a mailbox or two every day. No idea if it will get published.

- That was never a red card, not in any league in the world. A yellow card, yes. Who knows what the World Cup appeal system is like, but any fair viewing of Tim Cahill's challenge would rescind it.
- Australia was awful. Vince Grella, much as I love him, seems done. Chipperfield is finally showing his age.
- How pissweak are the Germans?? I always thought of them as stereotypical Teutonic giants, broad-shouldered and strong in the tackle. We rounded up the smallest collection of Aussie men we could find, sent them to South Africa and the Germans made them look like brutes. Pissweak.
- That said, Germany looks frightfully talented. And young. Prepare for another decade of semi-finals, I expect.
- Wilkshire and Emerton down the right were great. It was notable how many of Germany's attacks came down our left.
- I expect we'll see a very different line up and gameplan for Ghana, and I'm still hopeful we can get the win we need.
- What are the odds of Australia qualifying for 2014? Not high at the moment. We don't have the quality players coming through and playing regularly in top leagues. A decade ago it was Kewell, Neill, Emerton, Aloisi, Agostino, Zdrillic, Moore, Vidmar, Bosnich, Schwarzer, Grella, Bresciano, Viduka. Which young Australian players are now playing regularly in La Liga, Serie A or the Premier League? Or the Bundesliga or Ligue Un? It's worrying.
- I have adopted Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" as my personal (super cheesy) World Cup anthem. There will may well be tears after the Ghana game.

On reflection, I'd add this:
- It appears we went in already conceding the game. Verbeek is focusing on winning the Ghana match and getting a draw at least against Serbia. Assuming Germany win both their remaining games, that's all we need.
- That's is all well and rational. But it's not the Aussie way. We have a crack. We have a go. We set ourselves to knock someone off their perch. We are the underdog. We thrive as the underdog. Against Brazil in 2006 we played extremely well, got the rough end of the stick with the referees and had a couple of chances. We lost 2-0, with their second goal coming in the 90th minute as we pressed forward to find an equaliser.
- We need to attack against Ghana. There is nothing to be gained by sitting back. They would love a draw. We really cannot afford one.
- I only hope the game's rest will mean Harry Kewell, Mark Bresciano and Josh Kennedy are fired up to have a crack.