Young Socceroos remain perfect

After a scoreless first half, which was played in heavy rain, the Young Socceroos scored four unanswered goals in the second half to take another valuable three points.

The deadlock was broken in the 68th minute when Eli Babalj beat his defender and then neatly placed the ball into the corner of the goal, past the outstretced hand of the Chinese Taipei goalkeeper.

Two minutes later the lead was extended when a corner from Tom Oar was met by an unmarked Dylan McGowan who headed home easily.

In the 81st minute, Oar was again involved in the action when he made an attacking run into the box from the left side, beating two defenders and then slipping a pass to Babalj who calmly slotted his shot past the keeper from a tight angle to score his second goal of the match.

The scoring was completed just before fulltime after Nikola Stanojevic was brought down in the penalty box.

Steve Lustica made no mistake converting the resulting penalty.

“We had to wait a long time before we scored our first goal, although we put a lot of pressure on Chinese Taipei in the first half with plenty of balls inside their penalty area”, Young Socceroos Head Coach Jan Versleijen said after the match.

“Because we kept the pressure and pace high, after we scored the first goal we broke their resistance.

“To score three more goals was a good reflection of the difference between the teams.

“Due to the depth in the squad I was able to make changes which allowed us more opportunities,” Versleijen added.

Young Socceroos line-up: Mark Birighitti, Nikola Stanojevic, Dylan McGowan, Sam Gallagher, Rhyan Grant, Ben Kantarovski (c), Kofi Danning (Josh McVey 67’) , Steve Lustica, Tom Oar, Kliment Taseski (Eli Babalj 38’), Karem Bulut (James Virgili 67’).

In the other matches, Japan defeated Indonesia 7-0 and Hong Kong were 2-1 winners over Singapore.

Australia will face Singapore in their next match of the tournament on Thursday evening.

Japan head the table on goal difference from Australia with both teams on six points after two wins.

The top two teams from the AFC U-19 Championship 2010 Qualifiers will progress to the AFC U-19 Championship 2010 which will be held from 1-16 November. The host nation for the tournament will be determined later this month by the AFC Competitions Committee who are considering hosting bids from China, Thailand and Indonesia.