South Africa 2010 was an essential learning curve for a footballing nation still evolving and finding its place in the global landscape.

While we returned home with the same amount of points we mustered four years ago, a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Germany cast a very dark shadow over a battling 10-man 1-1 draw against Ghana and a final game 2-1 victory over Serbia.

Now the dust has settled on our South African expedition there is a lot to ponder, dissect and learn from the experience in the Rainbow Nation. Can it be considered a good World Cup for Australia? What are the positives? And, most importantly of all, where do we go from here?

To supply the answers to these three issue, we've canvassed the opinion of Socceroo midfield star Tim Cahill, SBS' Les Murray, former Socceroos coach Rale Rasic, Melbourne Heart assistant coach and 1986 World Cup star Jesper Olsen and Socceroos' World Cup 2006 striker John Aloisi to review our campaign in South Africa.

Reading the context
Before we delve into the more specific issues behind the Socceroos' campaign, their achievements need to be given some context. This was only Australia's third final appearance and their first back-to-back tournaments. With only 32 nations represented in South Africa, just making it is not an achievement to underestimate.

A glance at how other powerhouses of world football performed is a sobering reminder that four points from one of
the final's strongest groups is a sterling effort, especially considering how 2006's finalists performed.

France were a disgrace, mustering just a point from a weak group and becoming entangled in acerbic infighting, while reigning world champions Italy were rooted to the bottom of their group, below minnows New Zealand. England went into the tournament as the bookie's third favourites behind Spain and Brazil, but won a solitary game, the same as the Socceroos.

There was a pre-tournament acknowledgment that the Socceroos had been handed a tough group and by the quarters there was only one group that had both of its survivors alive - Group D's Germany and Ghana. Indeed Ghana were the only group runners-up to make it past the Round of 16. Serbia were many people's dark horses for a run to the latter stages of the knock-out phases, but found themselves rooted to the bottom of our group.

We played over 100 minutes of our three tough group games with 10 men and our only full shift with 11 men on the pitch resulted in the victory over Serbia.

Glass half empty? Or half full?
While we didn't match the achievements of 2006 by reaching the knock-out stages, should we consider South Africa 2010 a good tournament for Australia?

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