Pre-match: USA v Australia Game 2 6/19 3 pm ET

Head to head between tied teams is now the first tiebreaker, I think. With that, if we beat Australia and Turkey fails to beat Paraguay, we win the group.

 

while i agree its more a nice thing than a historic achievement, ill say what i always say- if it were that easy how come no ones done it before?

how has no german- or better yet italian cb (say cannavaro) connected on a million passes (to their cb partner) sitting on a 1-0 lead?

 

It sounds like Australia played against Turkey like the USA did against Spain in the 2009 Confederations Cup.

The USA is really gonna have to be careful if they want to win this one.

 

I think the key to beating this Aussie team IMO is to exploit the youth and inexperience of goalkeeper Patrick Beach. Young, athletic, and overeager, you punish him by faking shots, getting him to commit one way, then bury it in the opposite corner. You also pepper him with long shots to the top corner to drawn the defense out. He is ripe for the taking.

USA 3 x 1 Australia

Good onya, mates.

 

Actually, Türkiye were Pot 4 as a PO team.

 

That is what Türkiye thought.

 

I crunched these numbers myself -- I believe they're correct.

Average number of caps in each Group D team's opening day starting XI heading into the tournament:

Turkey: 47.5
USA: 46
Paraguay: 41
Australia: 19

 

The Aussies will bunker & counter and try to use their height on set pieces.

After our performance vs Paraguay, there is no earthly reason to change a thing. And likely the Aussies will feel the same.

Play your horses. Get to 6 points. That will get you to the Rd32 for sure. I mean, as soon as there is a draw, 3 teams on 6 points becomes impossible. That has already happened in 2 groups. 2 more and 6 points will officially clinch advancement.

A win plus Paraguay taking points from Türkiye, we win the group.Then you can rest/rotate at will. Anyone with a knock or card. Ream. Richard's ankle. Pulisic's calf.

 

I didn’t watch the game but saw that the Aussie keeper made a ton of saves, so it wasn’t like Türkiye didn’t get looks. A team can ride a bunker and counter for a while if they’re good at it, but if they’re giving up a decent number of chances too, they’ll eventually lose against teams with quality finishing. It seems like we belong in that category with Balogun’s form. I think it’ll be tough, and Australia might very well grab a goal on the counter, but I think we win if we play close to the level of the Paraguay game.

 

Let them bunker.
Let them try and score on a long counter attack.
But also let them try and weather the storm they will face from all over the field against us.

Look kudos to the Aussies but here's a telling tidbit.

xG Turkiye - 1.36
xG Australia - 1.18

And Turkiye had 72% possession.

I don't think Australia can win two games in a row like that. We have too many guys who can score and as others have already said. You keep pumping balls into the box and sooner or later a bounce doesn't go your way. EVERY bounce went Australias way.

 

Australia's XI (though what they did to Turkey should caution you over the club badge game)

Goalkeeper: Beach - Pretty shock starter. 23 year old only earning his 3rd cap (1st was in November, 2nd was in their last friendly before The WC). Plays for Melbourne City in The A-League (did win the title a couple seasons ago), only experience outside of Australia was a few seasons in Ireland and North Ireland as a youth player

LWB: Bos - 23 year old Feyenoord who started for them when healthy. Was also teammates with Bryan Reynolds at Westerolo for a couple seasons before that. He started and scored against us in the friendly last fall

LCB: Burgess - 30 year old Scottish born and raised player who came up through the Fulham academy though only ever played 4 games for them. Most of his career was spent in League One and League Two but he was part of Ipswich's rise from League One to The Premier League and started about half their matches in his lone PL season. Currently plays for Swansea where he literally played every single minute this season (not easy to do in a long Championship season). He played the full 90 in our friendly

CB: Souttar - Their captain yesterday and another Scottish CB for them. Came up through the Dundee and Celtic systems before leaving for Stoke City when he turned 18. It took a few season but he eventually broke through in The Championship and got a crack at The Premier League in 2022/23 when he was moved to Leicester and started their final 12 matches, but that ended in relegation. It's been injury issues for him since, he only played 3 matches in 2023/24, and then in late December 2024 he tore his ACL and literally just returned from it for Leicester's final 2 matches of the season. Before this World Cup camp he hadn't played for Australia in 19 months but he was their starter in Qatar.

RCB: Circati - 22 year old who was born in Italy but grew up in Perth. He returned to Italy in 2021 to join Parma in Serie B where he spent 3 seasons and helped them gain promotion to Serie A. He didn't play much in 2024/25 due to injuries, but he was their starter this season. He started and played 90 in the friendly against us

RWB: Italiano - 24 year old who's fairly new to the team, the October Camp against us was his first callup for Australia. He left Perth Glory to join Gladbach when he turned 18 though after spending 4 seasons there he never played for the 1st team. In 2024-25 he joined Grazer AK in Austria who had just been promoted to The Austrian Bundesliga, and he's been there since. He was their starter this season and they finished 10th out of 12th avoid relegation by 6 points. He started the friendly against us and came off in the 78th minute

LW: Irakunda - 20 year old goalscorer for them last night. Family fled Burundi to Tanzania before he was born, and then 3 months after he was born they left for Australia. Pro breakout came as a 16 year old for Adelaide United and then he left to join Bayern Munich after a couple seasons. He didn't breakthrough at Bayern (though did make the first team bench in a couple CL and Pokal matches), but did feature regularly for their 2nd team and in January of 2025 he joined Grasshoppers in Switzerland on loan to get first team minutes. He then joined Watford for this past season. He got off to a great start, bagging 2 goals and an assist in his first 4 games though he was eventually benched in October and didn't get the starting spot back til late February. He ended up with 4 goals and 5 assists in about 2000 minutes. He came on as a sub in the 60th minute against us.

LCM: O'Neill - 27 year old who grew up in Brisbane but his parents moved to England when he was a teen. He joined Burnley's academy and did get 3 PL matches as an 18 year old but that petered out fairly quickly and most of his time at Burnley was spent on loan in League One or back home in The A-League. He left Burnley permanently in 2020 to join Melbourne City where he stayed for 2.5 seasons before taking his next shot at Europe with Standard Liege in Belgium where he played quite a bit in 2 seasons as a rotational player. He was picked up by NYCFC in April of 2025 where he's been a starter. He didn't go to Qatar but he was called up to their first camp afterwards and has been a regular since, and he played the full 90 against us


RCM: Okon-Engstler - 21 year old who was born in Belgium while his dad (a former Socceroo himself) was playing pro ball there. He grew up in Australia but returned to Belgium as a 14 year old to join Club Brugge's academy and after a few years there he left for Benfica. He never got a first team match though in 3 seasons there and returned home to Sydney FC in 2025. Quick rise for the kid, who basically has one full season as a pro. He did not play against us (he had 0 caps at that point and his first callup for Australia would come a month later), but he assisted on the first goal yesterday

Right Wing: Metcalfe - 26 year old who scored their 2nd goal. Came up through The Melbourne City system and after 3 seasons of regular minutes he left for St Pauli in the 2. Bundesliga before the 2022-23 season. After starting there for 2 seasons they were promoted. In his first Bundesliga season, injuries held him to only 10 games. This past season he did play in nearly every match outside of 6 weeks he missed in the winter to due to injury, but always off the bench. St. Pauli were relegated so no clue where his future sits. He started and played 60 minutes against us in the friendly

Striker: Toure - 22 year old who was born in Guinea to parents fleeing Civil War in Liberia, and they moved to Australia when he was 6 months old. He got his pro debut for Adelaide when he was 16 and spent 2.5 seasons playing for them before taking his shot at Europe to join Reims in in 2022. He got 3 Ligue 1 matches that season but mostly played for the 2nd team, and then the following season he went on loan to Paris FC in Ligue 2 but also didn't play a ton. His real breakthrough in Europe came when he moved to Randers in Denmark where he played for a season and a half. This past winter he was actually signed by Norwich when Josh Sargent had his falling out with the club and he quickly became Josh's replacement. He only played 11 matches for Norwich due to injury but it was damn efficient, scoring 9 goals and getting 3 assists. He subbed on in the 60th minute against us in the friendly.

I was gonna do their subs and even a quick rundown of their bench players, but I do have to leave

 

I trust we will not go into this match with this level of arrogance, or give Australia any similar locker room material

Turkey captain Calhanoglu predicts dominant win over Australia | AP News

[C]aptain Hakan Calhanoglu has made some bulletin-board worthy comments about his team’s first opponent.

“I think we will dominate (Saturday), the game, because we have more qualities and a more talented team,” Calhanoglu said Friday of Australia, Turkey’s opponent at BC Place.

And then some quotes from after the game. First from Australia:

The pre-match comments incensed the Australians, with Nestory Irankunda admitting they used it as motivation.

“Obviously that gave us fire in our belly,” Irankunda said.

And then, incredibly from Calhanoglu again:

Turkey captain Hakan Calhanoglu doubles down on pre-match comment in tense exchange with Aussie reporter | 7NEWS

Asked about his pre-match comments after the game, Calhanoglu claimed he was proven right.

“We didn’t dominate?” Calhanoglu asked back to the reporter.

The journalist responded: “No, I don’t think you did. Possession, sure.”

Calhanoglu disagreed: “I don’t think they did the same like you. We dominated today, Australia was just behind, defending good.

“Two long goals, they scored. It was our mistakes.

 

That's like when the USA would beat Mexico by letting Mexico have all the possession and then the USA would score on set pieces or counterattacks, then the Mexicans claimed they dominated the match despite losing.

 

"They weren't superior," was their standard post-game refrain.

 

Yes dominating is a lot more than the possession numbers. And yes THE most important stat is shown on the scoreboard.

But planning to win by bunkering and hoping to get a counter or two is exactly what guys on here bashed the US for doing for years. Now you want to give kudos to the Aussies for it. Too funny. Hey you play the way you need to win the game, for sure.

But nothing about watching the Aussies beat the Turks makes me scare the Socceroos. Do we need to be cautious to not over commit too many forward? Certainly. The Socceroos can punish you. But on the flip side those lads from Down Under better realize that trying to win 2 games in a row by hoping all the luck is on our side is a tough road to hoe.

 

1930. 3 team Group. 3-0 Belgium. 3-0 Paraguay.

That is it. The only other time we won the group was the 2010 team that drew England, tied (beat) Slovenia, and then Donovan's late winner and the other result took us from being out to winning the group. If you wanna call the Slovenia game a win in your head, that is fine. But officially it wasn't.

 

do you think we can win two games like we did against paraguay? were there any bounces that didnt go our way?

i feel pretty confident and i believe thats justified, but the hubris in your opening? yikes.

nothing any of us say matters, obviously, but im here with you yahoos. i really hope things settle down a little bit. im not being negative or suggesting anyone not be positive so ill just ask again- do you really think we have multiple paraguay matches in us to the point you dare anyone try to play with us?!

 

We will dominate Possession.

somehow someway we got lucky and played Australia already. The advantages being, seeing how we line up versus them and what they want to do versus us. Any tactical shifts or wrinkles the aussies might add probably came through in the Turkey game.

The US needs to ensure that Freeman, Adams, Richards, and (in this case I would go for a speedier defender than Ream) are ready to sort some long route one balls out.

on the attacking side of things, we have certain players who do not take long shots and would rather ticky-tack it to goal. Then we have players who can do both. What we will need is a lot of lateral switches, stretching them and getting out of their shape. Whoever ends up getting the ball outside of the top of the box on the left and on the right in those give and go’s to the flank will hopefully take shots too, so we can get them to have to commit to every option.

 

If we can avoid even the slightest trace of overconfidence before the match, I don’t expect we’ll have any difficulty defeating these cream puffs.

 

We had to beat Egypt 3-0 or better and did. That wasn't bunker ball.

 

Turkey ain't Spain. So, yeah, Australia were bunkering desperately against Turkey like we were against Spain...

 

I think the Turkey captain said this.

 

Technically true, sort of. Patenaude had a hat trick in 1930.

 

Australia looked very effective with the low block. Turkey looked talented but frustrated.

 

Was also just looking at where their starting lineup and subs play. They’re quite unremarkable. The fact that they qualified for the WC and won against a team like Turkey is very special.

The major underdogs in this tournament like Australia and like Haiti will sometimes give it their all for their country and play well above how they play for club.

If we play like we did in the 1st half, we win and probably top our group barring a catastrophic loss to Turkey.