Another World Cup near-miss for Australia

Australia's dream of going to the World Cup was cruelly shattered again as they fell in a playoff for the third successive time after losing 3-0 to Uruguay on Sunday.

Australia's players left the field in desolation and some wept in the changing room following another near-miss which left the Socceroos with one solitary World Cup finals appearance in 1974 to their credit.

"Obviously, the players are very, very disappointed as I am as well," said coach Frank Farina after Sunday's second leg defeat meant Uruguay qualified 3-1 on aggregate.

"After the first leg, it was the best position we have been in in terms of qualifying, obviously we're very disappointed but the battle goes on."

Last Tuesday's 1-0 win in Melbourne had left the Australians believing that they could finally wipe out the traumatic memories of a similar defeat against Argentina in 1993 and their dramatic away goals defeat to Iran in 1997.

Australia had a two-goal aggregate lead with 15 minutes left against Iran before they conceded two goals.

While Uruguayans took to the streets to celebrate, Australia were once again left to contemplate their place in the soccer world.

The result is bound to stir the long-running debate about whether the Oceania region deserves an automatic slot at the World Cup.

CASH INJECTION
There's also the future of the game to consider in a country like Australia which is not used to failure on the sporting field.

In addition to the obvious boost a successive World Cup qualifying campaign could have brought, Soccer Australia desperately needed the cash injection an appearance in the finals would have yielded.

But rather than contemplate the various implications of defeat, Farina had a more simple matter on his mind -- his team's failure to score.

"I said before the match that we needed to score a goal, we didn't and we didn't put pressure on Uruguay," he said.

"I honestly believed we could score in Uruguay, we had good chances but we didn't take them.

"A few of our players were a bit off today, but the conditions were always very difficult."

Farina was asked about the World Cup qualifying campaign as a whole, which invariably leaves Australia with a string of embarrassingly easy games against the South Pacific island nations followed by a tough two-legged playoff against a team from the other side of the world.

But he didn't want to discuss the matter. "My head's at 100 miles an hour at the moment," he said. "FIFA makes the decisions and we must go by the rules. There's nothing we can do about it."

On his and soccer's future in Australia, he would only say: "That will be decided by myself and by Soccer Australia over the next few weeks after the dust has settled".