Australia has crusied to a dominant 5-0 win against Bangladesh in their World Cup qualifier at nib Stadium on Thursday night.
Australia were never troubled and dominated from start to finish, mustering a whopping total of 32 shots on goal. The match was played almost exclusively in Bangladesh’s half of the field in a professional performance from the favourites amongst some off-field turmoil.
It did not take long for the rout to begin. Mathew Leckie opened the scoring after five minutes with a tidy finish to clinch only his second international goal and first since the Socceroos’ pre-World Cup friendly against Canada in 2014.
The second came only three minutes later as Tom Rogic’s deflected effort from the top of the area beat Mohammad Shahidul Alam in the Bangladesh goal. The Celtic man bobbed up again on 19 minutes to shoot from the left, force another deflection and add a third.
Nathan Burns scored a fourth before the break after a goalmouth scramble to mark his first international goal for the Green and Gold.
The pick of the bunch, however, came from the foot of Aaron Mooy, who curled home a sensational strike from beyond 18 yards on the hour mark to make it 5-0.
Victory sees Australia with two wins from two on the road to Russia with a midweek trip to Tajikistan to come next week.
A monkey off Leckie’s back
Despite forming an integral part of the Socceroos squad under Ange Postecoglou, a familiar hoodoo has riddled Leckie throughout his rise to prominence: a lack of goals. Prior to Thursday evening, the Ingolstadt attacker had recorded just one goal as a Socceroo – that goal came in Australia’s World Cup warm-up clash against Canada at Craven Cottage.
It is not as though Leckie had been without opportunity; the final touch had simply been lacking.
But the Bulleen Lions product finally lifted a huge weight from his shoulders with a neat strike against the Bengal Tigers, stroking home after being teed up by Massimo Luongo.
Leckie’s challenge will now be to build on that effort and become a regular fixture on the scoresheet.
Rogic brings domestic form to the international stage
After going through something of an injury hell since moving to Scotland, ex-Mariner Rogic appears to have finally put the worst of those troubles behind him to rediscover his best with both club and country, form that has seen him identified as one of Australian football’s new great hopes.
Rogic has already scored twice for Celtic in five Scottish Premier League matches this season and came close to equalling that tally for Australia in Perth. The 22-year-old lined up at the point of an attacking diamond and roamed freely through midfield, shooting four times, scoring one, forcing an own goal and distributing at a success rate of 88%.
Quality of opposition regardless, Rogic did his chances of a starting XI berth against Tajikistan no harm.
Bangladesh keep things respectable
The result and complexity of this fixture never looked in doubt and was only ever likely to go one way. A cricket score was predicted to be the winning margin for the champions of Asia, but Bangladesh’s credit, the 167th-ranked side kept the scoreline to a respectable 5-0 after being knocked for four before half time.
The damage for Bangladesh could well have ticked into double-figures after a largely uncompetitive, lethargic first half.
However, to their credit, they came out in the second half with much more intent and resolve to keep things reasonable. The Bangladeshis will return home midweek to host Jordan in Dhaka.
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