Australia v Thailand pic special

Australia now will wait on Saudi Arabia’s match against Japan from 3.30am AEST, hoping the Samurai Blue can deny the Green Falcons victory in order to claim automatic qualification.

The Socceroos were dominant against Thailand, hitting the post three times from 39 shots, with 74 per cent possession.

However, Australia were lucky to survive a second half penalty shout after Trent Sainsbury's tackle on Teerasil Dangda.

Several members of the Australian squad will stay up and watch the Saudi Arabia-Japan game, with Juric, who broke the deadlock on 69 minutes, praying for some luck.

“I think we deserve a little bit of luck this time around,” Juric told Fox Sports.

“We’ve worked extremely hard. We’ve lost one game in the whole qualifying and that was away to Japan in this qualifying stage. It was a tough game last week.

“I think we really deserve some luck this time around.”

Juric said it was one of those nights where the ball just wouldn’t go in, claiming four or five goals wouldn’t have been just rewards given their domination.

“I guess it was one of those nights where the ball doesn’t want to go in,” Juric said.

“It was a little bit frustrating and leaves us in the position of waiting for another result to go our way which is definitely not what we wanted. We did our best and this is what it is.”

Australia v Thailand pic special