As the Socceroos’ journey towards Saitama Stadium ticked over the two-hour mark, the players started to see the funny side of it.
Traffic caused by an accident on the roads meant Australia’s trip into Saitama Stadium — meant to be no longer than 90 minutes — took two hours and 15 minutes.
Mitch Duke was watching the GPS on his phone. Harry Souttar started looking for social media updates from the stadium. Jackson Irvine just laughed at the madness of it all.
And incredibly, the Socceroos put it all behind them to fight out a crucial 1-1 draw with Japan.
“It started to create a few more obstacles against us. And, yeah, the time just kept going by,” Duke said.
“We were watching the GPS, to be honest — I set it up on my phone, and it just kept going back further and further and further.”
But if the players were feeling tense, they didn’t let on.
“The boys were so relaxed about it,” Souttar said.
“The music was playing. We were just all so focused and nothing was going to put us out of joint or give us any excuse.”
Irvine lauded the team’s ability to handle the setback.
“You end up just laughing,” he said.
“Like, football’s a funny thing when the circumstances are so out of your control, you’re just like, well, what can you do? You’ve just got to deal with it. It is what it is. There’s nothing we can do.
“In my experiences in this over my time with this team, it tends to be sometimes when we step up the most is when things aren’t going quite according to plan, and we have to — not improvise — but deal with a tough situation.
“And just a quick word of credit to the staff, playing staff, backroom staff, medical staff, everybody — the way that they pulled that together in a really tough situation to have us as prepared as possible, just top professionals.”
The team ultimately arrived about 45 minutes before kick-off.
The Asian Football Confederation knocked back requests from both Football Australia and the Japanese Football Association to delay kick-off.
The outfielders hit the pitch 28 minutes before kick-off, with coach Tony Popovic noting they had just 10 minutes to warm up.
“The boys handled that really brilliant. We didn’t let it rattle us. We just got in, got changed quick, and got out there and got prepared for the game as soon as we got back in,” Duke said.
“One of those things, you’ve got to make sure you just kind of get on with it and not let it affect you too much, not bring too much attention to it, which the boys didn’t do. No excuses.
“We did really well for disrupted preparation, but we still handled the job really well.”
The Socceroos’ next World Cup qualifier is against Saudi Arabia on Thursday, November 14 in Melbourne.
AAP
