SUBWAY SOCCEROOS’ SQUAD l SEPTEMBER FIFA MEN’S INTERNATIONAL WINDOW
Keanu BACCUS Mansfield Town FC, England Aziz BEHICH Melbourne City FC, Australia Martin BOYLE Hibernian FC, Scotland Cameron BURGESS Ipswich Town FC, England Alessandro CIRCATI Parma Calcio 1913, Italy Thomas DENG Albirex Niigata, Japan Cameron DEVLIN Heart of Midlothian FC, Scotland Mitchell DUKE FC Machida Zelvia, Japan Joe GAUCI (Gk) Aston Villa FC, England Craig GOODWIN Al Wehda FC, Saudi Arabia Nestory IRANKUNDA FC Bayern Munich, Germany Jackson IRVINE FC St Pauli, Germany Paul IZZO (Gk) Randers FC, Denmark Awer MABIL Grasshopper Club Zurich, Switzerland Connor METCALFE FC St. Pauli, Germany Lewis MILLER Hibernian FC, Scotland Josh NISBET Ross County FC, Scotland Aiden O’NEILL Standard de Liège, Belgium Kye ROWLES Heart of Midlothian FC, Scotland Maty RYAN (c) AS Roma, Italy Sam SILVERA Portsmouth FC, England Harry SOUTTAR Sheffield United FC, England Adam TAGGART Perth Glory FC, Australia Kusini YENGI Portsmouth FC, England
A terrible performance nets the Socceroos a horror result at home to start the 3rd round of AFC World Cup Qualifying.
Not a good start when their pool also contains a rampant Japan (4-0 up v China currently) Saudi Arabia and a rapidly improving Indonesia. That said, they'll still have the 4th and 5th rounds of AFC qualifying to negotiate if they fluff their lines over the next 9 matches (so long as they finish at least 4th in the group...)
Improving Indonesia a creditable 1-1 draw in Jeddah against Saudi. No easy game in Jakarta for the Socceroos.
4-5 players of the Indonesian starting 11 last night, are Dutch born players at Eredivisie clubs, obviously with some sort of Indonesian heritage. Shades of Mata Hari (lived in Indonesia but 100% Dutch heritage).
Indonesia also have Elkan Baggott (on loan at Blackpool from Ipswich) though he didn't play last night. Sth Korean coach.
To me, it looked like they've underestimated their opposition. Bahrain played competitively and were not too bad at all. Having said that, the 'roos missed a couple of sitters (one in each half) and the red card did not help. I do not want to be too harsh on Mat Ryan, but he had a bit of a hand in the Bahraini goal (I think Alex Paulsen would have saved that).
