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

[RIMB]

Players like Salah are great players for a reason.

Same as Mbappe and Kane.

They got their name by being consistently good - so hoping we catch someone of Salah's capability on a bad day and holding him ineffective for 90+ minutes is a bit of a nonsense.

If he plays, we have to score more than Egypt - because they will score.

If he doesn't play I expect them to score still - but not as many true attacking moments for us to defend so 2 goals should be enough for us.

As long as Popa doesn't put Velupillay and someone else up front as chasers in a negative attacking threat role like he has done so many times in the past and he actually selects a forward group with positive attacking intent then I think we can score a couple.

As a side note - I like Velupillay.

I can imagine Popa's head saying "I fucked up against the US but Egypt aren't the US so my idea should work this time".

He is still Popa after all.

Play negative football for a half and hope to win in the second half: Egypt to win.
Play positive football from the start, score then go defensive: Egypt to win.
Play positive football for 90+: We win.

 

[RIMB]

Got to laugh at everyone here that thinks we r in for a chance at beating Egypt lol. Can’t wait for the salt cum Saturday morning. Stats don’t lie and we don’t have a chance in hell to get a result. Plus the we will have a Sth American Ref that will favour all things Egypt.
Egypt 6 - 0 Socceroos.

Much better write off thanks.

 

[Barca4life]

I feel we are 2 or 3 players short on where we need to be for this game, Leckie and the Velupillay selections were baffling with the former getting injured against the US, and Italiano the only genuine right wing back as well.

Hoepfully Popa has a plan to navigate this given the threat of Egypts front line, we need to be very good to beat them.