Somehow, the Socceroos’ World Cup destiny remains in their own hands.

Good luck trying to make sense of that after Wednesday morning’s dramatic 2-2 draw with Bahrain; the second half alone swung from a blissful dream scenario to a living, breathing nightmare, and then back to an excruciatingly familiar purgatory.

Where to next for the Socceroos?Credit: Aleksandar Jason/Football Australia

All in the space of 30 minutes.

If you didn’t watch it, you missed out on entertainment and pain in equal measure.

The fun started early, with Kusini Yengi opening the scoring after just 38 seconds, latching onto an under-hit back pass from Bahrain defender Sayed Baqer to his goalkeeper, who the Portsmouth striker rounded before tapping the ball into an empty net.

The hosts were shell-shocked, and they couldn’t get a shot of their own on target during the entire first half. Australia looked to be in cruise control, and on course for revenge against the team that beat them in the first match of this qualification period, severely denting their 2026 World Cup hopes.

But Bahrain came out hot in the second half, and moments after Yengi screwed a chance to make it 2-0 at one end, an unfortunate deflection off Cameron Burgess’ admittedly heavy touch near the halfway line set up the equaliser. The ball fell beautifully for substitute Mahdi Abduljabbar, who looked up, spotted Maty Ryan off his line (not that he was out of position - that’s just how un-dangerous the situation was before the turnover) and lobbed him from 40 metres out. A freak goal.

Barely a minute later, Abduljabbar scored again to put Bahrain 2-1 up, and again, it was a stroke of luck. Hayden Matthews, the 20-year-old Sydney FC defender who was handed a surprise start by Tony Popovic, tried to head away a cross,but it deflected off his head and onto the right post. It bounced right into Abduljabbar’s path, and with Ryan exposed, he converted. Australia’s failure to kill off the game earlier had reared up and bit them.

There was one more twist to come: the........

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