Needing a win to advance to the quarter-finals, the Olyroos were beaten 1-0 by Cote d'Ivoire in Tianjin on Wednesday night.

Cote d'Ivoire advance to the next round with Argentina who topped Group A with three wins from three following their 2-0 win over Serbia at the Beijing Workers Stadium.

Australia's passing game kept the Africans guessing in the first half, and the men in green set the early tempo.

The Olyroos made good use of the flanks, especially down the left where Kristian Sarkies and David Carney worked tirelessly, but the Aussies desperately lacked a cutting edge in front of goal.

Carney had Australia's best chance of the first half when, after being set free by a delightful through ball from Stuart Musialik in the 20th minute, he beat the keeper only to have the ball cleared off the line by a retreating defender.

As the match wore on, however, Cote d'Ivoire's pace and physicality began to tell.

The warning signs were clear in the 67th minute when skipper Gervinho and Chelsea's Salomon Kalou's one-two opened up the Australian defence.

Kalou squandered the chance with only 'keeper Adam Federici to beat, blasting the ball high over the crossbar.

But the same pair made up for that miss 13 minutes later when Gervinho skipped two tackles in a surging run down the right.

He crossed perfectly into the path of the unmarked Kalou whose first-time strike into the top right corner gave Federici no chance.

"We opened up a bit in the second half because we had to win," was Olyroos' coach Graham Arnold's explanation for the momentum swing.

"The pitch got bigger when we didn't want it to get bigger - there was too much space between the players and fatigue began to set in."

Skipper Mark Milligan agreed with his coach that the team failed to take its chances.

"We played well, but it doesn't matter because we didn't score goals," Milligan said. "We created enough, but we didnlt finish them off."

The Australians bow out of the tournament with just the one point from a draw with Serbia and a loss to Agrentina.

In Beijing, the reigning Olympic champions went ahead in the 13th minute through a penalty to Ezequiel Lavezzi.

When Diego Buonanotte added Argentina's second in the 85th minute, it was good night Serbia.