Aussie spirit alive

We never thought we would lose it (the match to Japan), was the general consensus from the Australian players after the match and that the Aussie spirit was alive and well within this group of players.

We never thought we would lose it (the match to Japan), was the general consensus from the Australian players after the match and that the Aussie spirit was alive and well within this group of players.

It certainly looked as though the football gods were not on Australia-s side, as they went behind to a rather unfortunate goal that any other given day would have been a free kick to Australia. Pushing numbers forward, Australia had all the play but were continually thwarted by some stout Japanese defending and some good saves from Kawaguchi.

But the never say die attitude and Aussie spirit that we are renowned for came to the fore in the closing minutes and as a result, what looked like a disastrous look, turned into one of the most extraordinary wins.

Match winner Tim Cahill scored twice in five minutes as the clock got closer to full time, with John Aloisi sealing the victory two minutes into injury time.

"Definitely not," said Cahill on whether he thought we had lost the game. "We have a very good team that is very physically fit and plays some great football and I think the first goal was a bit unjust the way it went in, but our Aussie spirit showed that we fight to the end."

"We still believed mate," said defender Lucas Neill, who was arguably Australia-s best player over the course of the 90 minutes. "We believed at half time that we had gone behind to a dubious goal and that we always had the ability and a different approach that could get us the victory, but obviously like you said time was running out."

"In the end I think it showed and one thing we-ve got that other teams don-t have is Aussie spirit and that showed through in the end."

"When you go onto the pitch, you can-t think you have lost it," said Spanish-based striker John Aloisi. "You have to keep on believing that you have got a chance. He (Guus) wanted to get the ball out wide and get the crosses into the box because we have three big guys up in the box, who could get on the end of that or the second ball."

"The boys firmly believed that we could get ourselves back in the game," said Craig Moore. "It was one of those ones where if you can get one (goal), you know, the feeling was we could get another."

"We always believe in what we can do," said perhaps one of the weariest players on the park Harry Kewell. "We did go one behind, but we didn-t put our heads down, we just kept on going. The manager put some attacking strikers on and we just kept hounding the goal and we knew one was going to drop our way, but thankfully three did."