mark schwarzer has played the most games for the socceroos.
mark schwarzer has played the most games for the socceroos.
who has played the most games for the socceroos?
mark schwarzer
despite attracting less media attention than australian rules football and rugby league, soccer is australia's highest participation football code. during the second half of the 20th century many australian soccer clubs were based around ethnic groups, mostly european. however, the national league was completely reformed in 2004. australia's national team, the socceroos, has competed in the finals of five fifa world cup championships. in 2006 the socceroos moved from the oceania football confederation to the asian football confederation, a much stronger confederation which has allowed the australian team to avoid repetition of a history of missed world cup qualifications in forced sudden-death playoffs. australia won the 2015 afc asian cup. major international stars from australia include tim cahill, mark viduka, mark schwarzer and harry kewell.
culture of australia
in 1985, patikas joined olympics' rivals sydney croatia and scored two goals against his former club on his way to the player of the year and top goal scorer titles. he played 13 of his 27 caps during this season, and was a key member of the socceroos' 1986 world cup qualifying matches against a scottish national side featuring gordon strachan, alex mcleish and graeme souness. patikas who had experience in scotland during his time at aberdeen was one of the socceroos' stand-out performers in a 2-0 aggregate loss. following these games, he was signed by greek club aek athens. in march 1988, patikas returned to australia to represent the socceroos in the olympic qualifiers becoming the first player to turn out for the socceroos while based at a non-australian club. in his first game back he scored the winner for the socceroos against chinese taipei. the next match against new zealand saw patikas become the first australian goal scorer at the sydney football stadium when opening the scoring in a 3-1 win.
jim patikas