Michelle Grattan – John Howard put on a late-night party for Australian officials and travelling media who wanted to watch the soccer. Those in the little Aussie enclave on the fifth floor of a middling resort hotel at Batam, in Indonesia's far west, clutched stress balls as they cheered and groaned their way through the match.
It all ended in a massive low and Howard declared himself, "broken-hearted".
But at least the outcome was clear cut, more than can be said for Howard's day with his friend, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which stretched from a morning encounter on a jetty through to formal talks, a joint news conference and dinner.
Everyone later pronounced the talks had put the relationship back on the rails. Whether it is able to stay there, withstanding any fresh winds of trouble, remains to be seen. Nobody should put away their stress ball. Fundamental issues of concern were glossed over rather than solved.
Neither side achieved a lot, except to get together, which, after recent tensions, became an achievement in itself. Indonesia extracted fresh declarations from Australia that we recognise and support its sovereignty over Papua but, as Howard said, that's been the line for years.
How future Papuan asylum seekers who reach the Australian mainland are to be handled remains up in the air because of the Coalition row over the new border protection legislation. Australia's pressure on the Indonesians for a more robust stance towards militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was met with generalised responses that the Indonesians were doing everything to fight terrorism.
Howard and SBY may get on well personally, but they seemed to talk past one another, each addressing, and constrained by, his domestic political audiences.
It was Australia's granting of protection visas to 42 Papuans that threw the relationship into crisis in March. More recently, the atmosphere worsened with the release of Bashir, which drew a sharp reaction from Howard.
Howard's attempt to mollify Indonesia with border protection strengthening backfired when he couldn't bring his rebel backbenchers on board.
An exchange of correspondence before such meetings is rare. This time, in three letters (two from Howard, one from Yudhoyono), the leaders set out their differences and explained their positions.
Yudhoyono told their joint news conference he had been particularly pleased to read Saturday's letter containing assurances on "issues that are important to Indonesia, particularly national unity issues".
Howard couldn't make the same boast about Indonesia's response on Bashir. The PM earlier this month sent a fiery letter demanding closer surveillance of the cleric and the implementation of a United Nations resolution affecting him.
Although he had somewhat toned down his rhetoric, Howard went into the meeting declaring he would be putting his view "regarding that man".
He didn't get anything specific, although the Australians seized on a line from Yudhoyono's letter talking about "close surveillance of anyone suspected of involvement in terrorist activities" as a sign that progress had been made. It was a stretch.
Howard seemed much more willing to pull out all stops for the Indonesians than vice versa. But his backbenchers had put a brake on him. He still can't know whether his border control bill will get through. The Indonesians remain on the case of future Papuan asylum seekers.
Yudhoyono said Indonesia wanted better communications and consultations in such situations; precisely what's in his mind remains unknown.
On this key issue, Howard remains at the mercy of a couple of senators, the travel plans of Papuan asylum seekers and the ability of coastal surveillance to turn them back.
The Howard visit had a strange, precarious feel about it. It was affected by the collapse of the negotiations with the backbench rebels, the uncertainty about whether the visit would happen and the failure to achieve much except a recognition that problems must not be allowed to do permanent damage to a vital relationship.
Things seemed oddly disorganised. The leaders in their news conference entirely neglected to mention one positive – that a deadline of the end of this year has been set for finalising negotiations in an umbrella security treaty that will cover existing co-operation in areas including counter-terrorism and defence. It was as if the leaders were so focused on the difficulties, that anything else slipped their mind.
Just before the meeting, Howard said he would tell Yudhoyono that the two countries should "move on" from the challenges of the past few months. These "should not be allowed to stand in the way of what is a fundamentally important relationship to both countries".
One can understand Howard wanting to rise above the problems, but that's never going to be easy. They have been contained for the moment by this rather messy diplomacy, but they retain the potential to flare. For the sake of a patch-up, Howard has had to go a long way for Yudhoyono; Yudhoyono has been rather less giving, more demanding of his friend.
Australian National University defence expert Hugh White is about right when he says: "The most that can be said is that Howard has stabilised the relationship at a much lower level than it was in April last year when SBY came to Canberra".
[Michelle Grattan is political editor.]