Australia ultimately bowed out in disappointing fashion. Having expectedly dealt with Fiji in the preliminary round, albeit that famous hick-up in the away leg, where they just could not find a goal, they arrived for the qualification group stage in optimistic fashion. The team boasted various big profiles, and the chore of the team looked solid: Goalkeeper Jeff Olver, libero and captain Charlie Yankos, midfield playmaker Oscar Crino and forward Graham Arnold all started their total of six qualifiers. The same applied for energetic wide player Alan Davidson, who was capable along both sides, but who would be featuring to the left in their 3-4-3 formation throughout the group stage. 

The swift 4-1 win against neighbouring New Zealand in the opening fixture brought a great level of belief that this could be the year when Australia would progress through to the world stage, or at least win their qualification group. Having dealt with some early nerves, the Socceroos went on to dominate in midfield, and created various goalscoring opportunities in addition to the four strikes which they achieved. They also realized that they had a couple of European based forwards to call upon, and who would surely just improve an already decent side. 

Travelling to Israel for the second group stage fixture was a pretty crucial fixture, and said European based strikers were indeed brought in to aid their plight: The addition of Anderlecht’s goalscoring machine Eddie Krnčević and Club Brugge’s tricky livewire Frank Farina seemed a huge upgrade, although they faced a very hard-battling Israeli team in Tel Aviv. A share of the spoils, thanks to Yankos’ late leveller through a free-kick from distance, was a very welcome return, and three points from their opening two matches had been precisely what they’d hoped for beforehand. 

Two weeks later, the Australians went to Auckland in New Zealand to collect another point or two on their trail towards finishing first. Having lost seasoned defender Wally Šavor to a late red card in Israel, they needed to bring Gary van Egmond back into the starting eleven, and in a tie where they were also without Farina and Krnčević, the visiting Socceroos gave a very flat performance in which they deservedly lost. The Kiwis had regrouped since losing their two away fixtures, and sat deep and invited the Australians on to them, with the idea to hit their visitors on the counter. They executed their tactics to perfection, and an early Arnold opportunity in the second half apart, the Australians rarely looked like scoring. This was obviously a massive set-back, and they would now be hoping that their neighbours could dish out a similar kind of treatment to the Israelis next week. 

Having seen how Israel fought their way to a 2-2 draw in New Zealand, Australia realized they would need to beat their final opponents in order to progress beyond the group stage and into the intercontinental play-offs. Šavor, Farina and Krnčević were all brought back into the squad and restored to the starting eleven, where there was even space for a third ‘European’ in Chelsea forward Dave Mitchell. There was plenty of optimism ahead of kick-off, and the capacity crowd made sure to support their players from the word ‘go’. For all their huffing and puffing, though, Australia could not find a way through the solid Israeli rearguard, and had to see the visitors take the lead five minutes before half time, something which the hosts could never really recover from. They gave a slightly indifferent second half performance, and it was rarely difficult for the Israelis to defend, although young substitute Paul Trimboli did find a leveller two minutes from time. 

It was a hugely disappointing end to an otherwise alright campaign from the Australians to only register a single goal and a point from their final two matches to leave them trailing Israel by a point in the final table. One could see manager Arok’s frustration on the bench on several occasions during those final couple of matches. They would now face a long wait before they could have another go at World Cup qualification for the 1994 tournament in the USA.