On the scoreboard, Australia lost.
A 2-1 defeat to Argentina, the world No. 3 and a nation which boasts one of the greatest players to have laced up the boots in Lionel Messi, brought an end to the Socceroos’ journey in Qatar.
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But, as the match reports and analysis of Australia’s performance rolled in, there was so much more gained than lost.
With 90 percent of the stadium whistling their every move in displeasure, the Socceroos refused to take a backwards step against their fancied opponents.
Graham Arnold’s side weathered the early storm and, for a brief period of time, controlled the possession and played straight through the middle of the Albiceleste.
But all of the work was undone by a moment of magic from none other than Messi in his 1000th career game.
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He picked the ball up on the right side of the box after a failed clearance from the Socceroos before cutting inside onto his wand of a left foot and slotting an inch-perfect effort through the legs of Harry Souttar into the back of the net.
Argentina had a second early in the second half when skipper Mat Ryan’s gamble to beat the opposition press backfired in horrific fashion, gifting Julian Alvarez an open net to score into.
It could have been so easy for the Socceroos to roll over and accept their fate.
But the ‘Aussie DNA’ Arnold has banged on about was in full force.
10 yellow shirts flew into every challenge and didn’t stop running, eventually forcing an equaliser through Craig Goodwin’s speculative effort from range that smacked off Enzo Fernandez’s face and past Emi Martinez into the goal.
The Socceroos never relented and came so close to finding an equaliser with almost the last kick of the game through teen sensation Garang Kuol, but it was not to be.
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Although it ended in defeat, football journalists around the world marvelled at Australia’s endless spirit and bravery throughout the match.
The Times’ Jonathan Northcroft was left highly impressed by the no-fear approach, as the Socceroos demonstrated “they have more reserves of optimism than Qatar has of natural gas”.
“Australia are an incredible story and bowed out with Aussie punch and pride gloriously intact,” Northcroft wrote.
“Harry Souttar’s last start at club level involved marking a teenager called Rico Richards in an empty ground in Kidderminster for Stoke City Under-21 against West Brom Under-21, yet here he was policing Messi rather well; Messi preferred playing against Souttar’s partner, Rowles, or dropping into midfield to get the ball.
“They are a triumph of mentality over pedigree, the Australians, a collection of A-League and Scottish Premiership players pushing one of the World Cup’s leading contenders to the very wire.
“They don’t care who they play against, they stick to their game plan, their togetherness, their up-and-at-em 4-4-2 guns.”
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Aston Villa great Dean Saunders told talkSPORT: “Australia have done themselves proud.”
There were moments during the game when the Socceroos had to repel wave after wave of blue and white shirts bearing down on goal even after conceding two goals, but as The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew noted, “did you expect Australia to sit down and accept their fate?”
“This Australia, with its SPFL stalwarts, its honest journeymen, its plethora of guys with surnames as first names?
“Australia took the hard road to Qatar and they took the hard road out of it, outgunned but never outrun, even burgling a late consolation goal and threatening a staggering shock.
“They may not be stuffed with household names. They may have been given a runaround by the world’s greatest player for an hour.
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“But they left every piece of themselves on that pitch, and somehow you sense the game Down Under will never quite be the same.”
Even Argentina’s goalkeeper, Emi Martinez, was full of praise for his opponents.
“I thought they were outstanding,” Martinez told SBS.
“The way they were pressing, they make us really uncomfortable to play out from the back.”
Was the Aston Villa gloveman caught off-guard by the Socceroos?
“Not surprised,” Martinez replied.
“We knew exactly what we were going to face. They’d done extremely well to qualify and to play these kinds of games.”
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Martinez was also the man who denied Kuol, the youngest player since Pele to play in the knockout stages of a World Cup, right at the very death.
And the Mail on Sunday’s Oliver Holt believed the symbolism of the moment “was hard to ignore”.
“In the final seconds, the ball broke loose in the Argentina box and Australia’s second half substitute, Garang Kuol, who has never started a senior game for his club, Central Coast Mariners, or his country and is the child of refugees, found the goal briefly at his mercy and history beckoning,” Holt wrote.
“Martinez saved Kuol’s shot but the symbolism was hard to ignore.
“Time passes, old idols leave us and new legends are born.”
There’s evidently light at the end of the tunnel for Australian football.
If the world and one of Argentina’s unsung heroes of the day could see it, so should we.
