There always was a familiar feeling to this youthful squad of Socceroos. That sense of deja vu. That you had seen something like this before. But it took Nestory Irankunda running to the corner flag to remember what it was.
By reviving Tim Cahill’s famous goal celebration, the new face of Australian football instantly connected this fearless crop of young footballers finding their way on the world stage to the greats wearing yellow that have gone before.
Beyond the celebration, the echoes were everywhere. The scorer was a 20-year-old, not yet born when John Aloisi scored the penalty against Uruguay in 2005. The coach, Tony Popovic, was a player in the Socceroos squad in Germany the following year. The 20-year anniversary of Cahill’s double against Japan was exactly two days ago, and these players marked it with a 2-0 win over Turkey.
It all makes comparison hard to avoid. But do not misconstrue it: Irankunda and co have not yet earned the status of another golden generation. There is no Harry Kewell in this team, no Mark Viduka. They may get there, they may not. There is still much to prove, much to improve.
The force that is stirring is harder to pin down, more difficult to define. That 2006 side brought Australia back to the World Cup after a long hiatus. They had talent, sure, but that Germany campaign was less action movie than mystery drama.
What is the Socceroos’ ceiling on this, football’s grandest stage? Just how far could they go? Watching the agonising defeat to Italy in the last-16 game in Kaiserslautern, those were genuine thoughts among those in the crowd. Marco Materazzi had been sent off, Lucas Neill was capably marshalling the defence, and Guus Hiddink had saved two substitutions for the impending period of extra time.
Of course, Fabio Grosso made those the great unanswerables of Australian football. A puzzle of pain returns every time that world champion Italy team pops up in another cursed flashback. Then again, with every World Cup that has since come and gone, a sobering thought has begun to take hold. Maybe this was the Socceroos’ ceiling, a World Cup hallway the height of the front door.
Since then, there were the fading embers of that golden cohort, and a succession of forgettable national team coaches. There was the brief Ange Postecoglou tenure, its end serving only to deflate.
This article means no disrespect. Over two decades there were successive successful World Cup qualification campaigns, achieved by solid professionals representing the Socceroos, with the odd Aaron Mooy to sustain the dreamers. But the downright newness of 2006 – its impact amplified by the team’s quality – was a hard act to follow.
Each time the World Cup came around, the proposition became the same: avoid a thumping by the top-seeded team and disaster against the minnows. Then just beat Denmark. This was now life for the Socceroos in a tournament that over five successive appearances Australians had got to know perhaps too well.
The infinite possibilities Australian fans felt in 2006 collapsed into a singular purpose. Please, just get out of the World Cup group.
So when Graham Arnold – to his eternal credit – took the workmanlike squad of 2022 to the round of 16, it should have been a breakthrough, an emotional release. Like in 2006, their exit was noble. Against eventual champions Argentina it finished 2-1, and Garang Kuol’s late chance snuggled in next to Grosso’s trailing leg in the pantheons of Socceroos’ what-ifs.
Yet that team is not celebrated like their predecessors of 2006. They were over-achievers, who had little more to give. The Socceroos were by now stratified into the suffocating middle class of football, with World Cups like another working week. A numbness had taken hold.
Where had Australian football’s hope gone? Where was the wonder? What was left of its imagination?
The Socceroos’ World Cup script, it turns out, is not pre-written. On this night of shocks in Vancouver, Popovic dropped his captain, and left out his de facto vice-captain. Then Irankunda scurried away onto an exquisite pass, producing one delicious touch then a finish.
Patrick Beach threw himself to his right to divert aside a searing drive. Block after block followed, save after save. A brief interlude featuring a stunner from Connor Metcalfe. Then more blocks, more saves as Vancouver’s yellow swarm – and millions back home – began to feel World Cup wonder again.
This XI was a team with an average age of 24.6 years – almost 12 months younger than the next youngest lineup the Socceroos have selected at a World Cup. Popovic, a coach known to be conservative, was suddenly a man taking risks. The gambles paid off to deliver a result against Turkey, by far Australia’s biggest victory in the World Cup. It’s not hard to calculate: there have been only five.
This is a new World Cup formula for the Socceroos. They boast a plethora of emerging stars, all with Premier League potential. There is Irankunda the supernova. The multifactorial Mo Touré. Jordy Bos, bossing the left. Alessandro Circati, hot-headed but still a cool customer. Now Paul Okon-Engstler and Beach.
They may not end up eclipsing the round of 16 efforts of 2006 and 2022, but right now it doesn’t matter. Like that 2006 side of Kewell and Viduka, these Socceroos have started something. A new World Cup adventure has begun.
