Socceroos have rare chance to prove credentials - and secure early passage to knockout phase

The Socceroos are within reach of unprecedented renown. They step on to the World Cup’s main stage in Seattle in a showdown against co-hosts United States with a place in the knockout stage awaiting the victor.

Australia won their World Cup opener last week for only the second time in their history. They have never secured victory in their first two matches. To do it in the backyard of their opponents represents a rare chance to prove the country’s football credentials to a global audience.

“Playing the host nation here as well is a wonderful challenge, but also a wonderful opportunity for us,” coach Tony Popovic said. “And we know that we will need to be better than we were against Turkey to get the result we want.”

The anticipation for the two teams’ second group match has exploded since both recorded victories in their openers. Popovic and captain Harry Souttar faced an audience at the pre-match press conference perhaps double the size of what they had experienced the week before in Vancouver, as American and international media descended on Seattle.

“We’ve worked on a few different areas, and ways that we believe we can try and manage the US team when they are attacking,” Popovic said. “Of course, it will be a difficult challenge, but one that we’ve prepared well for, and we come in with confidence and we have our own belief as well that we can also cause them some problems.”

The Socceroos chose their two warm-up matches precisely with this fixture in mind. They played Mexico in front of a huge, unfriendly crowd in Los Angeles, then Switzerland in San Diego the following week in an early kick-off.

Seattle, in the north-west of the United States, boasts one of the proudest football communities in the country. The match’s stadium is also the home of the Seattle Seahawks, the reigning Super Bowl winners, and is known to be one of the loudest arenas in the country.

“The Mexico game, playing in front of almost 80,000 people, pretty much everyone against you in the stadium, so that was a good little test for us,” Popovic said. “Then the Switzerland game, playing at 12[pm], we tested logistically how that would look for us for this match, and we got some learnings from that, and we put them in place for this game.”

The temperature is expected to peak at 27C on Friday afternoon in Seattle. But it is the time of the game – a midday kick-off, nine hours earlier than the previous week against Turkey – that has forced the Socceroos to rejig their pre-match routine.

It is not just the players who will be bringing forward their alarms. About 10,000 Australians are expected to attend the match, and bars are opening from 7am to welcome the travelling support. The arena is a short walk from downtown, and hundreds of yellow shirts filled the city’s streets on Thursday ahead of the match.

The two teams faced each other less than a year ago, during a friendly in Colorado won 2-1 by the USA. Jordy Bos opened the scoring for Australia, but a double from Haji Wright – the US striker who was on the bench against Paraguay – secured the home team the victory.

Christian Pulisic, the Americans’ standout player – who is in doubt for the Seattle match – was forced off injured that night. He had already been on the end of some rough treatment from the Australians, but the ailment that ended his evening was a hamstring strain. He missed close to a month in the most serious of four minor injury absences in the past year.

Pulisic’s current calf complaint might not be as severe, but it has attracted more scrutiny. The winger was not seen training with the US team at all in the lead-up, and he was restricted to light work. Coach Mauricio Pochettino’s evasive response to a question about Pulisic’s availability in his press conference on Thursday only added to speculation the AC Milan player would be unable to play. Popovic played down the impact of Pulisic’s possible absence, however, saying the US “have plenty of options” even if the attacker was forced to withdraw.

In a contrast to last week, when Popovic talked up the Socceroos’ status of underdogs compared to the highly fancied Turkey, the coach and his captain focused their comments on themselves on Thursday.

Souttar, who took the armband against Turkey after former captain Maty Ryan was dropped, said the side’s belief has been building not just over the recent weeks. “It takes a long time to grow that belief,” he said.

“Since the start of May, every training session’s gotten better, the standard’s gotten better. The two friendlies were great for us in terms of different challenges that we faced.”

Ahead of what could be a pivotal day for Australian football, Popovic recognised his team’s growing confidence. “When we started this journey together, and we’ve seen the evolution of the team, the growth of the team. We’re seeing players maturing individually, but also being able to add collectively as one,” he said.

“It’s been building and that [game against Turkey] was a game that it all came together in terms of the belief, being present in the moment, understanding it’s a World Cup – for a lot of the boys for the first time – they are playing as if they belong there. And we’ll need that again tomorrow because it’s a wonderful opportunity.”

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