One of worst in history: Portsmouth striker under the spotlight for wrong reasons
Australia boss Graham Arnold has leapt to the defence of Kusini Yengi after his central role in 'one of the worst nights' in his country’s football history.
Yengi was sent off for the Socceroos, as they yesterday suffered an embarrassing World Cup qualifying humbling by Bahrain on the Gold Coast.
The popular Pompey front man was dismissed after an X-rated challenge on Sayed Baqer left his opponent with stud marks on his throat, with 13 minutes left.
His 10-man side then were stunned after a late own goal from Harry Souttar gave the minnows their first win over the Aussies in seven attempts.
Yengi has found himself under the spotlight after his red card followed a frustrating evening in which he often isolated, but missed a very presentable chance before the break six yards out.
The night has been understandably panned by the media on the other side of the world with sports reporter, Vince Rugari, branding the result ‘one of the worst nights in Socceroo history’, while the outcome was called ‘disastrous’, ‘horrific’ and ‘embarrassing’ in other quarters.
Yengi’s performance was judged as poor for failing to deal with Bahrain’s physicality and being part of a blunt attacking unit.
But, when it came to the red card, Arnold defended the 25-year-old, though he felt Australia had the opportunities to win the game.
Arnold said: ‘From where I was and probably everyone will disagree, I thought he was on the blind side of Kusini.
‘I think Kusini just didn’t see him at all and he stuck his foot up to try and control it, but obviously that’s my opinion and I haven’t seen the footage of it on TV.
‘Again it was more on the blind side of him and you could see from his reaction, he was apologetic - and he didn’t mean to do it at all.
‘You have to learn from these type of games when players are getting very frustrated.
‘There was a lot of fouls and time-wasting and, for especially the younger boys, it’s a learning process.
‘It’s a learning curve for our players and it just wasn’t our night, we had the chances to put the ball in the back of the net.
‘If you do that against these nations they tend to fall apart a bit more, but we didn’t do that and kept them in the game.’