Woohoooooo

Well the game on Wednesday was rather exciting wasn't it? For us, there was also the added excitement of having tickets to follow Australia at the World Cup i.e. Adam & I (and Adam's brother and his father) get to go only if Australia's qualified.

Of course, Adam had done his research. He'd found that SBS was broadcasting on the internet in UK and Oz, so we decided to stay at home and watch since it was on at 9am. Half an hour before kick off we try to get the feed up – it didn’t recognise that we were in the UK so we weren’t allowed access. A frantic 45 minutes of trawling discussion boards, changing security settings, changing proxies, etc ensued. Followed by much relief when we got feed from some Israel based sports channel. We set up both computers next to each other with the same feed, and alternated sound between them as they kept freezing and falling a few minutes behind each other. And then put on the sports news on tv in case they had anything.

There was much screaming when the goal was scored (poor kittens didn’t know what was going on). Adam would be overcome by pessimism every time Uruguay got a corner or a free kick in a dangerous position. Luckily in extra time Nibbler decided to do a crap on the couch so most of extra time was spent cleaning up (luckily the couch covers are removable and washable, so we chucked them in the washing machine and put clean ones on. She went again in exactly the same spot after the game.). A few minutes before the end of extra time we started getting texts saying ‘bugger’ and 'arrrghh' but not saying what was going on. We were obviously a few minutes behind in our broadcast. We assumed it meant penalties, but there was always a chance we had conceded and people were too demoralised to form sentences. A very stressful time.

And then the penalty texts started coming in. We had to read them but it was very frustrating to have no pictures and no commentary. Luckily Sky came to our rescue with live commentary (they have this wierd agreement where they are allowed to watch the live footage of the game and tell you what is happening but they can't show any action). Phew. Adam even seemed a little optimistic, with his supreme respect for Schwarzer's penalty saving ability, and knowledge that, due to injuries, Uruguay were using their third choice keeper.

Oh the excitement when Kewell scored the first penalty, with the little green tick appearing on the screen, the whoops of joy when Schwarzer saved their first and that little red cross mark appeared next to Uruguay. When the Dukes missed, you could see memories of the pain of the Iran game flashing across Adam’s face. I had to stand up for Aloisi’s penalty. It's the kind of tension that usually I would busy myself with other stuff to diffuse, but standing, poised to jump, was all I could do. But then the joy - "we're going to germany, WE're going to germany". the shock "are we really going to the world cup?", the joy "WE are really going to the world cup", the shock "now we have to go to work". luckily the english are suitably polite/football mad, so they were very polite about my singing and jumping and running around.

And for those nay sayers: Uruguay were ranked 17th in the world last month. So there is no reason we can't make the last 16 (14 higher ranked teams have qualified). We will be oz all the way to the semis. And warm clothing has become a luxury item, now we are saving for finals tickets (it was -5 this morning when I left for work. maximum of 6, and dark around 4pm. still no snow.)

Word to Dr Ferguson. Perfect first time.