Oh, well. Things used to be very different around here: Teams: Australia Chinese Taipei Israel New Zealand A round robin tournament with home-and-away fixtures Dates3 September 1985 - 10 November 1985 And the winner qualifies to a playoff with, as you'd logically expect, Scotland 21 Sep 1985: New Zealand v Australia (highlights), Auckland 8 Oct 1985: Israel v Australia (highlights), Tel Aviv 20 Oct 1985: Australia v Israel (full match), Melbourne www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBFqpt6qqZs - or, Highlights (sp1873 Youtube) 26 Oct 1985: New Zealand v Israel (highlights), Auckland Also, the goals by AUS v Taiwan/Chinese Taipei, 8-0 and 7-0, that week. And the make-or-break match: 3 Nov 1985: Australia v New Zealand (highlights), Sydney
What a good idea! Here are some more 1st leg Yes, they really played each other six whole years before soccer was invented Scotland's manager Jock Stein died on the touchline at their previous international. The Australia game at Hampden was the first as Scotland boss for Alex Ferguson: https://www.theversed.com/50832/when-fergie-managed-scotland/ (Archive)
I haven't researched it, but I strongly suspect we are the only nation who has played teams from all 6 confederations in world cup qualifying.
Well, Australia's joined nearly half of them But yeah, I think you're onto something there - checking New Zealand's record, I only see inter-confed matches against AFC, Concacaf and Conmebol teams. Which African countries did Australia play against? ..... Okay, now I'm sorry. ???? They keep using that word "Trending" - I don't think it means what they think it means
I don't look at trending articles. Knowing why you posted, I blame BigSoccer for bringing up the incident, not you.
So, the final playoff was another unique occasion, the match held in December 1985 at Melbourne's Olympic Park. The Australia v Scotland games are surely the farthest any teams have ever travelled for 'just' a playoff (16,000km)... but a few others also went long-haul before: World Cup 1962: South Korea v Yugoslavia: 8-2 (agg) to the Yugoslavs, who finished 4th in the world, but no Asian nation qualified. 1974: Chile v Soviet Union: One of the most hostile matchups ever. Only the 1st leg in Moscow went ahead, a 0-0 draw. USSR refused to go to Chile, where General Pinochet had seized power and turned the Estadio Nacional into a prison. 1978: Bolivia v Hungary: a 9-3 win for the Magyars In the fine tradition of trying to rig an intercontinental home game, the Scottish FA had possibly been accused of spraying water on the Hampden pitch (?) (...but... it's in Glasgow...) For the 2nd leg, Australia's coach thought he had the perfect plan, but sadly the FFA weren't on board "Frank Arok had told the Scots to 'pack their sunscreen' intending to play in the heat to wilt the Scots. The governing body betrayed the fans by hosting the game in Melbourne, at night and watering the pitch beforehand. The Scots must have thought it was Christmas." (Not sure if I'd agree with ozfootball.net that they were "betrayed" and "cheated", but it's a nice story anyway) According to the newspaper report, over half of the 30,000 crowd was Scottish. 1985 was one of the worst years for the fans, and sadly the Melbourne game wasn't untouched, with crowd trouble shown on the news the next day. This was the first Australian soccer match ever shown live on UK TV, though the Youtube full video has a sound glitch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3XXFnp7zrk AUS: Terry Greedy, Charlie Yankos, Alan Davidson, David Ratcliffe, Robbie Dunn (Frank Farina 75), Graham Jennings, Jimmy Patikas, Oscar Crino (Zarko Odzakov 68), Ken Murphy, John Kosmina, David Mitchell. SCO: Jim Leighton, Richard Gough, Alexander McLeish, William Miller, Paul McStay, Graeme Souness, Roy Aitken, Maurice Malpas, David Speedie (Graeme Sharp 76'), Frank McAvennie, David Cooper - (Ozfootball.net) Jim Leighton put in a great performance in goal for Scotland. On the Aussie side, Robbie Dunn and AM Jim Patikas were called up for the 2nd leg by coach Arok, who hid his disappointment well. (This was after 25 minutes..!) Here are a few match highlights, with Arthur Montford and Kenny Dalglish, and an short interview with Alex Ferguson: