Victory over Honduras 3-1 in the home second leg, after the teams played out a 0-0 first leg, sealed Australia’s qualification for a 4th successive time when it comes to World Cups.
The hero of the evening in Sydney was Aston Villa hitman, Mile Jedinak, who finally had the ball in the net after over 2 hours of football. With the deadlock broken, the game opened up to allow Australia to gain 2 penalties and Jedinak to score a hat-trick, with Honduras scoring a late consolation.
The big story earlier in the week was Italy’s failure to qualify for the tournament next year.
Sweden held on to their first leg 1-0 lead over Italy to get a 0-0 and send the former World Cup winners out before the main event.
The last time they failed to make the finals of the World Cup was in 1958 and before that 1930 when they didn’t play the first ever tournament.
Even though the Italians dominated the second leg roared on by the home crowd, they failed to overturn Sweden resilience in defending.
Other notable play-off matches see cruel defeats for both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
After a 0-0 draw in the first leg against Denmark, Republic of Ireland stood a good chance of making another finals. But after taking an early lead, succumb to quick strikes via Spurs player Christian Eriksen before going on to win the tie 5-1.
Meanwhile, a contentious first leg penalty see Switzerland oust Northern Ireland from qualification. The disputed penalty in the first leg, see Switzerland hold on, even though Northern Ireland came close to taking it to extra time in the second leg, with an injury time effort cleared from the line.
In the friendly internationals, England drew 0-0 with both Germany and Brazil at Wembley ahead of the world cup. While Scotland lost to Holland, and Wales lost in France and drew at home to Panama.