The Socceroos have the chance to make life a lot easier at next year’s World Cup in their friendly against the United States of America in Denver, Colorado on Wednesday.
Kicking off at midday AEDT, Tony Popovic’s side has the chance to sneak into a Pot 2 seeding for next year’s tournament with a victory against one of the host nations.
Australian captain Mat Ryan returns to the starting XI for the clash with the USA as one of five changes made by Popovic with Jason Geria, Jordy Bos, Nicholas D’Agostino and Martin Boyle also recalled the line-up.
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Saturday’s 1-0 win against Canada courtesy of Nestory Irankunda’s goal extended Australia’s unbeaten run to 11 games (seven wins and four draws) but also jumped the Socceroos to 24th in FIFA’s live world rankings.
When the draw for the 2026 World Cup is made in December, the top 12 teams in the rankings who have qualified will be placed in pot one with teams ranked 13th to 24th place in pot two and so on.
If Australia can maintain 24th spot in the rankings, it should theoretically make for an easier group in the new-look 48-team tournament.
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A win or a draw against the 16th ranked Americans, who are managed by former Tottenham and Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino and have drawn with Ecuador, beaten Japan and lost to South Korea in their last three matches, would certainly help Australia’s chances of avoiding two heavyweights in the group stage.
“Well, we want to win every game. It’s always easy to say when you don’t get the result that the result doesn’t matter, because it’s a friendly. That’s a throwaway line that’s easy to use,” Popovic said in his match eve press conference.
“We want to keep our run going. We know it’ll be difficult.
“That’s why we’ve taken on this game and we appreciate the US giving us this opportunity to test ourselves against them.”
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Australia having qualified for the World Cup well in advance has afforded the team the luxury of having such tune ups against the host nations.
The players are already feeling the benefits, with defender Milos Degenek saying the victory against Canada in Montreal replicated what they will face next year.
“That game was very valuable to us because it was a game that could be very similar to the group stages or to the knockout phase where in the last ten minutes you’re under pressure,” Degenek told Fox Sports News.
“There’s a home crowd advantage here or an advantage for another country maybe that’s going to be at the World Cup and have more fans.
“And you’ve just got to get your head down and grind out a result, and we’ve done that.”
Socceroos Starting XI: Mat Ryan (c), Jacob Italiano, Jason Geria, Alessandro Circati, Cam Burgess, Jordy Bos, Aiden O’Neill, Max Balard, Connor Metcalfe, Nicholas D’Agostino, Martin Boyle.
Substitutes: Milos Degenek, Lewis Miller, Kye Rowles, Mohamed Toure, Ajdin Hrustic, Paul Izzo, Nestory Irankunda, Mitch Duke, Cameron Devlin, Joe Gauci, Patrick Yazbek, Hayden Matthews
USA Starting XI: Matt Freese, Chris Richards, Cristian Roldan, Weston McKennie, Christian Pulisic (c), Miles Robinson, James Sands, Alex Freeman, Haji Wright, Tim Weah, Mark McKenzie
