May 30 (Reuters) – World Cup co-hosts Mexico savoured a \u2060confidence-building 1-0 friendly win over Australia in front of a mammoth crowd at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, a result that \u2060left both sides’ coaches with hard choices as they prepare to nametheir squads for the tournament.<\/p>\n
A Johan Vasquez header from \u200ca set-piece gave Mexico the lead in the 28th minute, and the much-changed team held on successfully despite a better second half from the Socceroos following a shaky start.<\/p>\n
Mexico coach Javier Aguirre made nine changes from the starting 11 that beat Ghana 2-0 in a friendly in Puebla last week.<\/p>\n
There was much to like about the performance of the \u200bfringe line-up, barring a howling mistake in defence that should have cost an equalising \u2060goal in added time before the main interval.<\/p>\n
A long \u2060ball forward put Mexico in disarray, with a poor clearance going straight to Mohamed Toure on the edge of the area as goalkeeper \u2060Raul \u200cRangel charged off his line.<\/p>\n
But the Socceroos striker volleyed wide with an empty goal at his mercy, drawing a collective gasp from the pro-Mexico crowd of 78,479.<\/p>\n
That was Australia’s only genuine chance in an opening half in which they were generally under siege.<\/p>\n
Chavez blazed over \u2060from long range in the 10th minute, and goalkeeper Mat Ryan had to make \u200ba fine save 15 minutes later when \u200che tipped a close-range header from Alexis Vega over the bar.<\/p>\n
The pressure finally told as Vega swung in a corner kick \u2060and Vasquez soared over Aiden \u200bO’Neill to thump in a header off the left post.<\/p>\n
DRINKS BREAKS<\/p>\n
Simulating World Cup conditions, the friendly included mid-half drinks breaks, but their timing – the first in the 32nd minute and the second in the 79th – appeared confusingly ad hoc.<\/p>\n
The teams were also permitted 11 substitutions for the friendly – compared with six for a \u2060regular World Cup match – and they made liberal use of the quota.<\/p>\n
To the delight \u200bof Mexican fans, Aguirre replaced Rangel with 40-year-old stopper Guillermo Ochoa for the second half, then triggered five substitutions on the hour-mark, including rising 17-year-old attacker Gilberto Mora.<\/p>\n
Australiacoach Tony Popovic followed suit with four changes eight minutes later, and was nearly rewarded immediately when substitute Kai Trewin’s through-ball found Ajdin \u2060Hrustic in the area, only for the midfielder to slam his shot straight into Ochoa.<\/p>\n
Australia defender Harry Souttar, a hero of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, played his first international since 2024 after prolonged Achilles injury trouble, but attacker Cristian Volpato missed out on a Socceroos debut, following his surprise switch from Italy.<\/p>\n
Souttar said Australia would work on their set-piece defending before their final World Cup warmup against Switzerland on June \u200b6 in San Diego. <\/p>\n
“To concede off a set-piece was disappointing,” added the Scotland-born centre back.<\/p>\n
“It was disappointing \u2060to lose, particularly at the end but there were plenty of positives to take from it.”<\/p>\n
On 76 minutes, Mexico had a goal disallowed from a \u200bfree kick taken much too quickly for the referee, triggering a heated exchange between the \u200cteams before the kick was re-taken.<\/p>\n
Mexico open the World Cup on June \u200b11 against South Africa in Mexico City before playing South Korea and the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n
Australia start their campaign against Turkey on June 13, then meet co-hosts United States and Paraguay.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by William Mallard and Kate Mayberry)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 30 (Reuters) – World Cup co-hosts Mexico savoured a \u2060confidence-building 1-0 friendly win over Australia in front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-705810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705810","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=705810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}