Midfielder Brett Emerton scored seven minutes from time as Australia rallied to beat Oman 2-1 despite being a man down for most of the Asian Cup qualifier on Saturday.
The nearly full-strength Australian squad took a slender lead in Group B with seven points from four matches following back-to-back, home-and-away wins over Oman.
Oman took the lead in the 17th minute in Muscat after being awarded a penalty when Rhys Williams was sent off for a foul on Imad Al Hosni in the area.
Luke Wilkshire equalized for Australia two minutes before halftime before Emerton fired in the winner in the 83rd.
"It is really a disappointing result and I really can't describe what happened in the game as we did everything right and created a lot of chances but yet we couldn't score," Oman coach Claude Le Roy said. "The experience of the Australians helped them to win as they managed to come back from a goal down ... despite playing with 10 men for a long period."
Australia was one of the four nations which earned an automatic berth at the 2010 World Cup through Asian qualifying, along with Japan, South Korea and North Korea.
The fifth-place Asian team, Bahrain, went down 1-0 to Oceania champion New Zealand in an intercontinental playoff for a World Cup spot at Wellington on Saturday.
That meant there was no qualifying matches in Asian Cup Group A, where Bahrain shares top spot with Japan.
In the other Group B match, striker Bader Al Motawaa scored twice in the second half to lift Kuwait to a 2-1 win over Indonesia and second place in the group.
Bambang Pamungkas gave Indonesia the lead after 33 minutes but Al Motawaa leveled with a penalty on the hour and scored the winner two minutes from the end of regulation time. It was Kuwait's second win from three matches, including the upset victory at Australia in March.
In Group C, Alexander Geynrikh went on after halftime and scored in the 57th and 65th minutes to secure Uzbekistan's 3-1 win over Malaysia at Tashkent.
China and Syria won in Group D, while Iran held on for a win over Jordan and Thailand beat Singapore 3-1 in Group E.
Substitute striker Raja Rafe headed home Firas Al Khatib's free kick deep in stoppage time to give Syria a 1-0 win over Vietnam in front of 30,000 fans at Hanoi's My Dinh Stadium, giving the Syrians a third straight win and a three-point buffer over China in the group.
"My faith in Raja Rafe has been repaid," Ibrahim said. "He scored with his only chance and kept Syria on top of the group. However, I think my players did not play well today. They made many wrong passes and the link play was poor.
"We won because of our fitness advantage. Our stamina helped us remain strong enough to go in search of a late goal. Anyway, I am pleased that we are still top and China will have to battle with us to go to Qatar for the finals."
At Beirut, China took advantage of heavy rain in a 2-0 result, with goals from Yu Hai and Qu Bo either side of halftime.
Javad Nekounam's header in the 72nd minute gave Iran a 1-0 win over Jordan, which went a man down late in the match when Mahmoud Shalbaeih picked up his second yellow card.
Jordan had chances in the 23rd and 70th minutes but was unable to beat the Iranian defense at Azadi Stadium.
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|