Day 15: Australia and England Win

Frank Lowy (head of Westfield, Chairman of the Football Federation of Australia and saviour of Australian football), being interviewed at Nelspruit Airport. Much shorter than I expected. No doubt he has used this WC to lobby hard for Australia in 2022.

Another great stadium, held up by pylons resembling giraffes.

Aussies go mad after the Cahill goal.

Aussies do a great job belting out the National Anthem, equal to the Poms and better than everybody else.

We meet our bus at 8am for the airport, and a two-hour flights to Nelspruit. This is a tiny airport, built to service Kruger National Park, and thousands of Australians catching planes at 1am after the game certainly strained its resources.

We watch the England v Slovenia game on screens in a big open-air pub near the stadium, and England scrape through with a better but not convincing performance. But USA also win, so then take the group, and England now face Germany. If Rooney can find some form, England can beat the Germans, who have looked average after their great start against Australia.

Against Serbia, Australia plays well, and for a few minutes, the dream of scoring enough goals to wipe out the pasting from the Germans is almost a reality. Excellent saves by Schwarzer, and goals from Cahill and Holman, plus Germany taking the lead against Ghana, and suddenly all we need is another goal and we'll be through. The team lifts and the crowd yells, but a rare fumble from Schwarzer and the glimmer of hope is gone. The Serbians are furious at the end when a shout for a penalty is declined that would have put them into the next round.

But the crowd is buoyant and happy as it trudges back to the buses. There, we discuss the 'might have beens' that every eliminated nation has: if we'd only lost 2-0 to Germany, if Wilkshire had scored against Ghana, if Pim's first game tactics were not so poor.

So none of the elation on the night in Stuttgart where we drew with Croatia in 2006 to qualify for the next round, but the same set of results: played three, won one, drew one, lost one. And maybe that's all most expected, as nearly everyone on our tour goes home in the next few days.