Fresh off a historic friendly win over the Netherlands on Saturday, Australia defeated Uzbekistan 1-0 in their opening final-round Asian World Cup qualifier.
The Socceroos took the lead on 26 minutes as Scott Chipperfield headed a Luke Wilshire cross from the right past Uzbek goalkeeper Ignatiy Nesterov.
Mark Bresciano missed a golden chance to double the lead just before half-time for Australia as Uzbekistan caused all sorts of trouble for the Aussie defense, but both Ulugbek Bakaev and Maksim Shatskikh missed second-half chances for the home side.
Uzbekistan crowded the Australian area in the dying moments of the match, but the visitors held on for the hard-fought win.
Australia went joint top of Group A with Qatar, pending their match with Bahrain later on Wednesday, and idle Japan. Uzbekistan are bottom of the group with zero points from two defeats.
