Australia booked their place in the second round of the World Cup 2006 and sent Croatia home with a 2-2 draw on 22 June 2006.
 

Australia's team was: Kalac, Neill, Moore, Chipperfield (Kennedy 75), Emerton, Grella (Aloisi 63), Culina, Cahill, Sterjovski (Bresciano 71), Kewell, Viduka

Croatia's team was: Pletikosa, Simic, Tudor, Tomas (Klasnic 84), Simunic, Srna, Nico Kovac, Babic, Kranjcar (Leko 65), Prso, Olic (Modric 73)
 

Australia only needed a draw from this match to make the second round of the World Cup 2006 but went 1-0 down after only 2 minutes. From a central free kick, Darijo Srna put the ball into the top corner after Mark Viduka fouled Niko Kovac.

After 38 minutes, Stjepan Tomas gave away a penalty with a handball in the area and Craig Moore put it away to level the match 1-1.

Ten minutes into the second half Kovac gave Croatia the lead again with a shot from the edge of the area that went over the diving Australian goalkeeper, Zeljko Kalac but he really should have saved it.

With just over ten minutes left Liverpool's left winger Harry Kewell levelled the game at 2-2 and put Australia back in the second round of the World Cup 2006 after an assist by substitute Aloisi.

The English referee Graham Poll then took centre stage by sending off  Dario Simic (Croatia) after 84 minutes, Brett Emerton (Australia) after 86 minutes and then booked Josip Simunic (Croatia) for a second time but did not send him from the field after 90 minutes.

Poll gave Simunic a third yellow card as the game ended in injury time so he was eventually sent off but Croatia almost scored in injury time before this which would have sent Croatia though at the expense of Australia (and this would have been extremely controversial).

Australia got the draw they needed and now play Italy at Kaiserslautern on Monday 26 June at 16.00 BST.

See the World Cup tables and who Australia play next on the World Cup screenchart