Celtic’s Jackson Irvine helped Australia to the great escape as they made it through to the last eight of the Asian Cup in Dubai.
Trailing 1-0 to Saudia Arabia the Australian u-20 side looked to be heading out of the tournament until substitute Corey Gameiro popped up in injury time to equalise to send the Aussies through and Saudi’s out.
The point allowed Australia to top the group after beating Qatar in the opening group match before being held to a 1-1 draw by Syria.
“Football always delivers dramatic finishes and fortunately for us it went on our favour,” Australian coach Paul Okon said.
“We just required a draw from the match but Saudi Arabia scored a good goal and we had to chase the match.
“I was quite worried earlier as the Saudis are a good physical side and we had a gruelling contest two days ago against Syria so I made a couple of changes keeping in mind the lethargic situation of our players.
“It did not work and I had to make substitution and with the Australian attitude of never-say-die, we finally grabbed the match-saving point.”
Goalscored Gameiro, on loan to PSV Eindhoven from Fulham said: “It was a very difficult game for us. We knew that the goal would come but it was a matter of time. The only thing which was against us was the clock but I am very happy that finally our hard work paid off.”
Tomorrow Australia face Jordan for a semi-final place with the last four in the competitions going through to the u-20 World Cup finals in Turkey next year.
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