Robbie Slater: I still wake up and think about what could have been in that fateful 1998 World Cup qualifier
Robbie Slater admits not a day passes without the ghosts of Iran returning. It was 22 years ago almost to the day that the Socceroos were cruelly denied a World Cup spot. If only VAR had been around then!
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If only the VAR was around in 1997.
What an irony, that had the maligned technology been introduced in time for the Socceroos’ fateful qualifying play-off tie with Iran, I would probably have gone to a World Cup.
It’s for all the wrong reasons that second leg at the MCG is one of the most iconic games in Australian football history.
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A 2-2 draw on November 29 that, coupled with our 1-1 draw in Tehran the week prior, stopped Australia qualifying for France 1998 and snapping a 24-year finals drought.
To be honest, not a day passes without the ghosts of Iran returning, even if it’s just a fleeting thought.
I won’t say they haunt me because it was a privilege to play in such a dramatic affair, albeit one so devastating it had the great Johnny Warren openly crying on national television.
About twice every week for the 22 years since, that final 25 minutes from hell is mentioned to me in conversation.
One of the many talking points is that Iran’s first goal – Karim Bagheri’s finish to kick-start their comeback from 2-0 down – was offside.
That’s probably why I’m such a big fan of the VAR.
Maybe something in the back of my brain thinks that if that goal had been rightfully chalked off we’d have gone to the World Cup.
Because Iran only had three shots the entire game and, as history knows, we were so dominant we could have been five or six goals up at halftime.
Even after the unthinkable had happened, when Khodadad Azizi equalised four minutes after their first to give them the away-goal advantage, Graham Arnold nearly snatched a winner as a substitute.
But VAR aside, the real moment we could have lost the game was when serial pest Peter Hore burst onto the field and damaged the net in Iran’s goal.
We’d just gone 2-0 up and had all the momentum – we had one foot on the plane to France!
But during those several minutes while play was stopped, we were all on the field talking to each other excitedly about what we were sure was going to happen.
Normally we wouldn’t have had that time to start thinking, and that impacted us when the match restarted.
Once they scored once it seemed inevitable they’d do so again.
People told us stories that they’d boarded a flight when we were 2-0 and landed to discover we’d somehow come up short.
Australia, then in Oceania, were the only team in World Cup history to have gone unbeaten in qualifying and not qualified. And technically we never lost – we went out on away goals.
It’s why it’s now practically a famous quote in Australian football media that 2-0 up is the most dangerous scoreline in football.
Mark Bosnich, our goalkeeper that night, still says it on Fox Sports’ coverage, and I know exactly what he means because it paints a picture of our rollercoaster.
The crowd of 98,000 at the MCG created this incredible atmosphere that had us on a high even before kick-off.
In some ways, the national anthem and theatre of the night made us feel the wrong things at the wrong time.
When we were ahead it was absolute elation. At fulltime I can only describe it as numbness, a blur of disappointment compounded by the fact that, for some of us older players, it was our last chance to qualify.
I had to sit and watch a World Cup in a country I’d spent a good portion of my career.
The home ground of my old club Lens, Stade Bollaert-Delelis, was one of the venues, and they were waiting for my return.
In that sense it hurt deeply. And it is a regret that stays with me, even though it’s faded over time.
That’s partly why, when John Aloisi scored that penalty against Uruguay in 2005, it felt like it wasn’t only that Socceroos team that booked our first World Cup spot since 1974, but also all those before them who never quite got that far.
Originally published as Robbie Slater: I still wake up and think about what could have been in that fateful 1998 World Cup qualifier