{"id":736925,"date":"2026-06-14T23:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T23:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736925\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T23:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T23:25:11","slug":"world-cup-socceroos-hero-nestory-irankunda-hits-back-as-turkiye-star-says-his-team-dominated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/736925\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup: Socceroos hero Nestory Irankunda hits back as T\u00fcrkiye star says his team ‘dominated’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Socceroos goalscoring star Nestory Irankunda says T\u00fcrkiye’s players could not back up their talk in Australia’s 2-0 World Cup win.<\/p>\n

It comes after Turkish midfielder Hakan \u00c7alhano\u011flu said his side “dominated” the Socceroos, just as he publicly declared it would the day before the game.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t dominate?” \u00c7alhano\u011flu said to an Australian journalist after the match, when questioned about his pre-game comments.<\/p>\n

“We dominated today. Australia was just behind, defending good. Two long goals they scored. It was our mistakes.<\/p>\n

“If you control all the game the whole 90 minutes and you don’t score, it means you have to always be focused.<\/p>\n

“We had 78 per cent [possession], but we had not been precise, and we think it is also important to score a goal.<\/p>\n

“We know the defence was very good. They are very tall, so it is very difficult sometimes to have a competition with other players who are much taller than us.”<\/p>\n

\"Nestory<\/p>\n

Nestory Irankunda emulated Tim Cahill with his goal celebration. (AP Photo: Kaleb Tatum)<\/p>\n

The Socceroos had the last laugh, though, producing a perfect counterattacking performance to keep T\u00fcrkiye at bay while remaining a threat on the break.<\/p>\n

Irankunda said the players were aware of the comments out of the Turkish camp and were determined to make a statement.<\/p>\n

“We were told that there were some things said, and obviously that gave us fire in our belly,” Irankunda said.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, it did piss off a few boys, but at the end of the day, these guys can talk all day, so we don’t really care.”<\/p>\n

The Socceroos have been written off by plenty ahead of this World Cup, including by some outspoken American pundits in the media.<\/p>\n

\"Connor<\/p>\n

The Socceroos have been written off many, but silenced many of the doubters. (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

As the doubters recalibrate their expectations of Australia, Irankunda is revelling in the moment.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, you gotta let these people talk, and it was the same with these lot here.<\/p>\n

“They came, they did their talking, but they couldn’t back it on the field.<\/p>\n

“We got the win at the end of the day, and people can talk all they want, but if they’re not gonna put a performance out there on the pitch, then there’s no point in talking.”<\/p>\n

The Socceroos next play the United States at 5:00am AEST on Saturday as they look to seal progression to the knockout stage of the tournament.<\/p>\n

More on FIFA World Cup 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Socceroos goalscoring star Nestory Irankunda says T\u00fcrkiye’s players could not back up their talk in Australia’s 2-0 World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,596,283239,67584,42150,85,13195,21418],"class_list":["post-736925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-hakan-calhanoglu","tag-nestory-irankunda","tag-socceroos","tag-sports","tag-turkiye","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736925","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=736925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}