Saturday\u2019s 1-0 win against Canada<\/a> courtesy of Nestory Irankunda\u2019s goal extended Australia\u2019s unbeaten run to 11 games (seven wins and four draws) but also jumped the Socceroos to 24th in FIFA\u2019s live world rankings.<\/p>\nWhen 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.<\/p>\n
Popovic insists Socceroos ‘ready to go’ | 01:01<\/p>\n
If Australia can maintain 24th spot in the rankings, it should theoretically make for an easier group in the new-look 48-team tournament.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s chances of avoiding two heavyweights in the group stage. <\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we want to win every game. It\u2019s always easy to say when you don\u2019t get the result that the result doesn\u2019t matter, because it\u2019s a friendly. That\u2019s a throwaway line that\u2019s easy to use,\u201d Popovic said in his match eve press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to keep our run going. We know it\u2019ll be difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019ve taken on this game and we appreciate the US giving us this opportunity to test ourselves against them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Youngest Socceroos captain in 44 years | 01:11<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat 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\u2019re under pressure,\u201d Degenek told Fox Sports News.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a home crowd advantage here or an advantage for another country maybe that\u2019s going to be at the World Cup and have more fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you\u2019ve just got to get your head down and grind out a result, and we\u2019ve done that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Socceroos Starting XI: Mat Ryan (c), Jacob Italiano, Jason Geria, Alessandro Circati, Cam Burgess, Jordy Bos, Aiden O\u2019Neill, Max Balard, Connor Metcalfe, Nicholas D\u2019Agostino, Martin Boyle.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordy Bos gave the Socceroos a 1-0 lead against the United States of America with a superb left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[2095,1724,64,63,689,2065,3912,3897,9239,131295,596,653,2105,131297,131293,124616,941,131296,131294,35234,60721,131292,938,2041,2067,677,2111,5813,85,131298,6248,131290,131291,2614],"class_list":["post-214213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-america","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-canada","tag-colorado","tag-denver","tag-eastern-asia","tag-eve-press-conference","tag-football","tag-fox-sports-news","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-home-crowd-advantage","tag-host-nations","tag-international-friendly","tag-japan","tag-live-world-rankings","tag-match-eve-press","tag-matt-ryan","tag-mauricio-pochettino","tag-minas-panagiotakis","tag-montreal","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-quebec","tag-south-korea","tag-sports","tag-stade-saputo","tag-tony-popovic","tag-tony-popovich","tag-tune-ups","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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