Australia keep World Cup dreams alive after victory over Tunisia

Mitchell Duke’s first half header was enough to gain victory for Australia in their second game of the 2022 World Cup.

Harry Souttar and Aaron Mooy were two of the main men for their side, throughout the game both making huge tackles to keep out Tunisia.

Tunisia struggled to find the same attacking form they did in the game against Denmark.

The defeat adds pressure to Tunisia as they now go up against the reigning champions France in their last game of the group stages.

In the early stages of the game, Tunisia seemed to be in control whilst Australia looked all over the place.

When Australia got into the game, they had a string of crosses throughout the first half but saw most of them blocked.

Behich created one of Australia’s first chances, he tried to pick out one of his teammates in the area but was blocked by Montassar Talbi.

Riley McGree’s cross was cleared by Tunisia and allows them to break forward but, a poor touch from Issam Jebali allows Harry Souttar to clear.

A good chance came for Australia to open the scoring when they won a free kick.

Aaron Mooy loops the ball towards the area and it reaches Craig Goodwin who tries to put the ball in to Duke but, the ball again is blocked by the Tunisian defence.

Tunisia break forward just before the 20 minute mark, Mohammed Drager plays in Jebali who the passes the ball to Mskani but Mooy makes a crucial challenge to deny Tunisia the opener.

After sustained pressure from Australia, they finally make the break through.

Mcgree passes the ball out wide to Goodwin who put a nice ball into Duke who headed the ball into the top right hand corner.

In the final minutes of the first half, Tunisia came alive and started to create chances.

Efforts from Jabali, Drager and Mskani went wide or were blocked by the Australian defence.

Mskani had the best opportunity of the first half to level things up but his shot went wide, although he really should have put it away.

In the second half, Tunisia came out with more energy.

Tunisia were starting to create more and more chances and starting to put pressure on Australia but they held strong.

Wave of attack after attack came from Tunisia but Harry Souttar and Kye Rowles were the saviours for the team.

Australia had a couple of chances to get their second, Mooy’s superb strike just flying over the bar and Lackie was just a little too far behind a brilliant cross from Jamie Maclaren.

After their humbling defeat against France, Australia have put themselves back in the fight for making it out of the group stage.

Mitchell Duke described the victory as “Such a big moment” and “The best feeling in the world.”

This is Australia’s first victory in a World Cup since their 2-1 victory over Serbia back in 2010, they will go onto play Denmark in their final game of the group stages on Wednesday.

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