Aussies Rise on World Cup Stage

If you had even momentarily harboured thoughts that Australia would come back from the dead twice in this tournament and go on to play Italy in the final 16 in Kaiserslautern tomorrow, you would have been taken aside and reminded that dreaming on that scale is for small people of single-digit age who spend much of their day with jam around their mouths.

And you would be taken no more seriously than anyone who suggested Italy will be sent home in disgrace.

The first scenario is a reality; the second is highly unlikely but not entirely out of the question. This is, after all, football. And they are, after all, Italy. Halfway through, we have one wacky World Cup on our hands.

While Australia are flying after again demolishing the notion that they are makeweight bums in coming from behind twice to draw with Croatia in Stuttgart on Thursday night, Italy are in an altogether different mood. They have to be worried that, not only could they go out to rampaging underdogs in the same woodland setting where Australia demoralised Japan 13 days ago, but they know that another investigation into their domestic shenanigans has arisen at the worst possible moment.

Even as Italy were beating the Czech Republic in style earlier on Thursday, it was announced that fines, bans and relegation may await four Italian clubs as well as censure for at least 26 individuals over match-fixing allegations. Fourteen members of the squad - eight of whom started against the over-rated Czechs - are attached to the indicted clubs, Juventus, Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina. While no player has yet been implicated, none will look forward to playing away from the limelight if their team go down.

It is understood Juventus will almost certainly be relegated. The trial starts this week with sentencing scheduled for World Cup final day. So how must Juve's Fabio Cannavaro feel about the likelihood of playing in Serie B? Not to mention his Juve team-mates Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluca Zambrotta, Mauro Camoranesi and Alessandro Del Piero..

Meanwhile, back in the Theatre of the Absurd, the possibility of Italy going on to win the World Cup and then having some of their heroes involved - even tangentially - in a match-rigging scandal is hugely unpalatable.

This is not the usual player-inspired betting scam, more a case of Juventus reportedly persuading the authorities to appoint favoured referees for their games. And Fiorentina seem to be Juve's whipping boy, bullied into the alleged scam after battling back from bankruptcy. Whatever their cool swagger, it is the sort of distraction that threatens to undermine Italy's campaign. It also provides Australia with a psychological advantage (and don't they love that?) for the most unlikely passage to the quarter-finals.

The confluence of circumstances has echoes, too, of the Paolo Rossi affair. He was banned for two years for match-fixing he vigorously denied. To much amazement, Rossi was granted a late reprieve and, hey ho, was suddenly eligible to play in the 1982 World Cup. He started abysmally and went on to become the top scorer in the tournament as Italy were crowned world champions. Little more was ever said about his right to be there.

There is never any shortage of drama where Italy are concerned. The Australians are giving them a run for their euros, though. But for Harry Kewell's late equaliser, this atrociously refereed match would have had to be replayed. Graham Poll let Josip Simunic play on after giving him two yellow cards. He booked him again seconds before blowing time - and only then sent him off.

That is a technical error. It is the same situation as applied when a referee awarded Bahrain a match-winning penalty instead of Uzbekistan an indirect free-kick in their qualifying match last November. That match had to be played again. However, the official Fifa readout of the match statistics in Stuttgart made no mention of the first yellow card. Sometimes it suits people in football to look the other way.

And Australia roll serenely on, the unrivalled entertainers of this tournament. Masterminding their crazy, glorious progress is the man with probably the keenest brain in football, Guus Hiddink. His substitutions have been masterly. Against Japan the two players he sent on, Tim Cahill (with 38 minutes remaining) and John Aloisi (16), scored to win the match; in Stuttgart he brought on the gangling Joshua Kennedy to add drive and energy, alongside the verve of Marco Bresciano. All night, Australia's midfield had pulled Croatia out of position, with Cahill punching holes up the middle and Kewell attacking from the left and right. Now, at the crunch, they stretched them again and Bresciano delivered the cross that eventually fell for Kewell, who could not have timed his first goal of the tournament more deliciously.

Mark Viduka could be right about Hiddink: 'The man's a genius.' Football Federation Australia will regret letting him move on to Russia after the World Cup. Australians might not be totally soccer-savvy - but they know sport. Football, the simplest of games, does not confuse them like it does those more deeply entrenched in its alleged mysteries. The new recruits to football, armed with a limited repertoire of mainly borrowed chants, formed the bulk of the 30,000 partygoers on Thursday night. They are learning fast about what Australians once called 'wogball'. In 2018, if they host the World Cup, they might even have dreamt up some songs of their own.

And here is something to ponder on your next trip to the bookies: if, against all reasonable expectations, Australia and England both win their next three matches, they will meet in the final (four months before they contest The Ashes again). Insane, of course. Like nearly everything at this World Cup.