Forget about the end result for a minute, the Socceroos’ friendly against Ecuador produced a number of historic moments that those in attendance at The Den will be able look back in years to come and say they were there to witness them.
Forget about the end result for a minute, the Socceroos- friendly against Ecuador produced a number of historic moments that those in attendance at The Den will be able look back in years to come and say they were there to witness them.
The major one was obviously striker Tim Cahill becoming Australia-s all-time leading goal scorer, his brace seeing his tally go to 31 goals, two ahead of Damien Mori.
While there was talk in the lead up around the prospect of Cahill breaking the record, no one would have said, let alone thought about the other historic event that took place.
Whether it has happened before in an international friendly anywhere in the world previously is up for conjecture, but one thing is for sure, and that is that the Socceroos have never had three goalkeepers appear in the same game.
Astonishingly, this eventuated at The Den as Mat Ryan, Mitch Langerak and Brad Jones all featured between the posts throughout the 90 minutes. After Ryan started in goal, Coach Ange Postecoglou replaced him with German based Langerak for the second half in order to give both keepers some game time. Then, with just over half an hour remaining, Langerak received a straight red card as he collected Ecuador forward Enner Valencia with a rash attempted clearance.
Enter Brad Jones, goalkeeper number three for the night. Who knows, Postecoglou may have planned to bring Jones on later in the game anyway, but in the end his hand was forced as three goalkeepers played in the same game for the Socceroos for the first time.
The best stats man in the business could only find one case of something similar happening before in an Australian representative team, that being in a Women-s U20 match back in 2008.
After what took place at the Den one would be hesitant to say it, but it-s unlikely this will happen any time again in the near future.
But let-s not forget Tim Cahill, who has etched his name further into Australian football folklore.