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Socceroos vs Egypt - 2026 World Cup R32 - Sat 4th of July 4am AEST

Pub League Champion said:
Got concerns about our ability to score and attacking depth off the bench.

We’ve gone scoreless for two games and as someone posted, only scored more than 1 goal in 5 of 18 WC games. If we let in one goal, it’s going to be difficult to overcome.
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I reckon our lads are good enough to score at this level, it's more whether or not Popa's gameplay will let them have a sniff. If we only have Irankunda up front and playing a defensive shut down role again, we're absolutely no chance.
 
Here's my glass half full assessment of where we are at leading into the Egypt game and why I think there is something to Popovic's optimism on the team's progress.

Turkey showed us we could defend deep under pressure and score on the break. The USA taught us that there is no room to be anything but 100% on for 90+, every game. But it also showed a level of resilience because that could have easily turned into a 3 of 4 nil result. It wasn't perfect but Paraguay showed us that we could apply defensive pressure higher up the pitch and sometimes turn that into incisive attacks.

All three of those things will be important against Egypt because they will look to be the protagonists. The two further pieces of growth I would love to see is capacity to be consistently dangerous in the final third.
 
Socceroofan4life said:
3-0 Australia.

We get a set piece goal in the first half and then as they open up more trying to equalize in the second we become more dangerous on the break despite having very little ball and get a second and then a third when they give up.
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Very much my prediction also but I do wonder whether they might get a red card also.

Because that would help us a lot.
 
SpongeBobFC said:
From what ive seen of clips Toure looks like he's moving ok in training.
Id start this with Volpato off the bench.
That gives us a threat down the left we didnt have last game
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I thought Volpato was a little too selfish against paraguay and actually ruined what could have been a fantastic goal scoring opportunity. In the first half he received the ball and Irankunda found space on halfway and he didn't feed him the ball instead of hogged it and got tackled and we missed a perfect opportunity for irankunda to do his thing.
 
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As a Man City fan. Marmoush has two different performances.

Comes out and scores worldie and plays out of his skin cuts people to pieces.

Or he comes out and has an absolute howler won't be able to hit a barn door and will be defensive liability losing ball in bad areas. Big reason he didn't play much this year.
 
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DandyCasey said:
Am I the only one not confident about this? We've only scored in two of our last five games
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I'm with you.
All this talk about them in this position for the first time doesn't fill me with confidence.
Nor MO possibly @ 50% or out.
They are playing the biggest game of their lives, all to play for nothing to lose.
They are not mugs otherwise wouldn't be there.

haha jas88, Marmoush, many players are as such, hot cold, 50/50 in a game.
He is the one I'm worried about for as you know he does have the skill set (even for that 1 moment) to win 1v1's, or get into space and pull the trigger smack on.
He's a threat better than any US or Turk attacking player imo.
 
DandyCasey said:
Am I the only one not confident about this? We've only scored in two of our last five games
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verrelli said:
If we do go down and fail to score for a third successive game against moderately strong but not top level opponents, Popa will deservedly be criticised.
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Egypt are strong favourites to go through. There might be criticism but we aren't expected to progress.
 
To speak frankly Egypt are a great team and their team being mostly from their domestic league speaks more to fact that their league must be pretty darn good rather than a weakness.

I don't predict a 3-0 win for Aus out of arrogance or lack of respect for a great team. It's just the world cup comes around every 4 years... this is just our third chance in our 100 year plus history in the knock outs of a world cup. I can't be pessimistic. I'm gonna be dreaming of us making it far and even winning the damn cup till we get eliminated or till we win it. Gotta enjoy the moment because damn it's so rare and I do feel so lucky to be able to watch it happening.
 
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