The

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Germany 2006, was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host the ...

CONMEBOL The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL, , or CSF; es, Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol; pt, Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol) is the continental governing body of football in South America (apart from Guyana, Suri ...

– OFC qualification play-off was a

two-legged In sports (particularly association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum o ...

home-and-away tie between the winners of the Oceania qualifying tournament,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, and the fifth-placed team from the South American qualifying tournament,

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. After winning the series, Australia qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup held in Germany.

Overview

The games were played on 12 and 16 November 2005 in

Montevideo Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

and

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

respectively. With the home team winning 1–0 in both matches, the

aggregate score There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the ''single elimination'', the ''best-of-'' series, the ''total points series'' more commonly kn ...

was tied 1–1, and, with no away goal advantage, the play-off was decided by a penalty shoot-out, which Australia won 4–2 in order to qualify for the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

for the first time since the 1974 tournament. It was the second consecutive

where the two sides had played each other for a place in the tournament. On the first occasion in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

won 3–1 on aggregate. The draw for determining the order of the home and away legs was made at a FIFA congress on 10 September 2005. Australia finally won a

play-off after losing to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

(

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

(

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

(

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

) and

(

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

). In the second leg, there was heavy booing by Australian fans during Uruguay's national anthem, in response to the dirty tricks, spitting and punches thrown at the Australian team on their previous playoff meeting.

Venues

Background

Match details

First leg

----

Second leg

Aftermath

Australia qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and were drawn into Group F with defending champions

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. After beating Japan 3–1 in their opening match, Australia lost 2–0 to Brazil and in the final match they also drew 2–2 with Croatia, finishing second in the group on four points. In the Round of 16, Australia were defeated 1–0 by the eventual champions,

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. For Uruguay it was the third FIFA World Cup out of four since

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

they failed to qualify. Jorge Fossati lost his job and rehired

Óscar Tabárez Óscar Washington Tabárez Silva (; born 3 March 1947), known as ''El Maestro'' (The Teacher), is a Uruguayan professional football manager and former player. He most recently coached the Uruguay national team. After an unassuming career as a ...

who managed the team before (1988–1990), and Uruguay entered the ''Proceso'' era breaking many records and have qualified for every FIFA World Cup since 2010. In 2009,

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

ranked Australia's victory in 2005 as number one on their list of milestone sporting moments of the 2000s.

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

paper the ''

Herald Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald S ...

'' named Australia's victory in 2005 as one of 100 great moments in Australian sports history. A documentary titled ''November 16'' was released in 2015 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the second leg. It featured interviews with

Álvaro Recoba Álvaro Alexánder Recoba Rivero (; born 17 March 1976; nickname "El Chino"

, Fabián Carini and members of the Australian squad.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2006 Fifa World Cup Qualification (Conmebol-Ofc Play-Off)

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

Play-off CONMEBOL-OFC FIFA World Cup qualification inter-confederation play-offs Australia national soccer team matches Uruguay national football team matches qual 2005 in Uruguayan football 3 qual International association football competitions hosted by Australia International association football competitions hosted by Uruguay November 2005 sports events in Australia November 2005 sports events in South America 2000s in Sydney 2000s in Montevideo Sports competitions in Sydney Sports competitions in Montevideo FIFA World Cup qualification 2006