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Cahill Scores for Australia, Brings Them One Step Closer to Brazil

Tim Cahill scored -- with his head, natch -- to help Australia beat Jordan.

If Roy Miller scoring for Costa Rica was out of the ordinary, Tim Cahill putting one away with a header for Australia is typical.

In Australia's World Cup qualifier against Jordan yesterday, Cahill scored in the 61st minute to put the Socceroos up 2-0. The game would end 4-0 and put Australia in qualifying position for next year's World Cup.

Though, to be fair to Cahill, "typical" really doesn't capture how important the goal is for his country's Would Cup qualifying campaign. To punch their ticket to Brazil, the Aussies had to secure wins in both their last two qualifying games. They did half the job Wednesday by beating Jordan. They'll have a chance to finish the job in six day's time against Iraq.

As it stands now, Cahill and company sit one point ahead of Oman and three points ahead of Jordan in the Asian Football Confederation's qualifying Group B. Those two play each other the 18th. If Australia wins against bottom-of-the-group Iraq, Australia is through and Oman and Jordan are playing for third. If not, Australia could drop to third, where their road to Brazil gets tougher: They'd have to play the third place team in Group A to go through to an intercontinental playoff against South America's fifth place team (right now, that'd be Uruguay).

So, yeah. Typical style from Cahill, but a big goal nonetheless.