Qantas Young Socceroos go down in tour opener

The Qantas Young Socceroos has lost its opening game of their South American preparation tour, 2-1 to the Under 20 team of top Chilean side Colo Colo. Bruce Djite scored Australia's only goal.

The Qantas Young Socceroos has lost its opening game of their South American preparation tour, 2-1 to the Under 20 team of top Chilean side Colo Colo.

Australia, who arrived in Santiago on Tuesday night and backed up 24 hours later for the match, started strongly and led 1-0 at the break thanks to a Bruce Djite strike. Colo Colo however upped the tempo in the second half and scored twice against a tiring Australian side.

The match started evenly, but Australian gained the ascendancy in the last 25 minutes of the first half and deservedly went ahead in the 35th minute.

Djite capitalized, after the ball deflected off Adelaide United-s Nathan Burns, with the Australian Institute of Sport marksman making no mistake.

Ten minutes after the break the scores were all locked up when a Colo Colo forward pounced on a loose ball at the top of the penalty box, to slam his shot into the top corner.

They were almost ahead five minutes later when a another long range shot this time hit the post and fortunately rebounded away.

The Colo Colo winner came with a little under ten minutes remaining thanks to another stunning strike from outside the penalty box, which Australian keeper Mitchell Langerak could only manage to turn onto the post, but this time though it went in.

Match Details

Australia 1 (Bruce Djite 35-) Colo Colo U-20 2

Starting line-up: Mitchell Langerak (GK), Peter Eleftherakis, Matt Spiranovic, Stephen O'Dor, Jimmy Downey (Oliver Bozanic 70-), Shaun Ontong (Captain), Nathan Burns, Evan Berger (Tarek Elrich 70-), Chris Grossman, Bruce Djite (Robbie Kruse 75-), Cameron Watson (Troy Hearfield 60-) Subs not used: Aleks Vrteski (gk), Ben Vidaic, Brad Porter, Ryan McGowan, Sebastian Ryall

Cautions: Nathan Burns (39-)