SEATTLE, WA \u2013 There will be plenty of lessons for the Socceroos from their 2-0 loss to co-hosts USA in Seattle on Saturday morning AEST as they look to pick themselves up and go again in a crucial final group match against Paraguay.<\/p>\n
Speaking to players in the mixed zone after the match, there were a range of interesting comments that helped to expose exactly where things went wrong for Tony Popovic\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
After the match, coach Popovic suggested the scale of the occasion may have had something to do with a sluggish start that saw the home side score twice in the opening half, but that\u2019s not necessarily how the players saw it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s hard to pinpoint,\u201d defender Jason Geria told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t out there (from the start)\u2026 but I can\u2019t fault the guys\u2019 application and their intentions going out there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone knows how big an occasion this was today and how important this game is, so no one\u2019s going out there to not perform.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a case of, yeah, we didn\u2019t\u2026 have as much control as we wanted to in that first half. Yeah, that\u2019s just how it played out, but I thought the second half was a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Midfielder Jackson Irvine added: \u201cWe struggled to kind of come into the duels. It looked like everything kind of was dropping their way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were obviously super aggressive early on in the game as you expect them to be at home game and home World Cup and we probably just didn\u2019t find quite enough to match them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still had two good openings in the first 20 minutes, one for Mo and one for (Mathew Leckie), which was positive. And they didn\u2019t really create too many clear, clear opportunities, but it just felt that the momentum kind of was with them and we struggled to find that switch.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut yeah, listen\u2026 it\u2019s learning, it\u2019s part of football at this level. As I said, full credit to the whole group. All the changes, the ones that came in, and it never never kind of let the game get away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, each player has a different vantage point, so it was fascinating to hear from someone in each line of the park, aside from goalkeeper Patrick Beach.<\/p>\n
At the back, captain Harry Souttar pointed to an inability to beat the US press.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just couldn\u2019t get the ball out in the pressing positions,\u201d Souttar explained. \u201cWhen they pressed us they pressed as well, trapped us in corners and yeah, it was a frustrating first half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were explosive, but we knew that we knew that coming into the game. So it wasn\u2019t like that it was a surprise to us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the frustrating part and that we know we just didn\u2019t deal with that better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Operating in the middle of the park, Aiden O\u2019Neill noted how little time he and midfield partner Paul Okon-Engstler had on the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the first half obviously was disappointing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to concede the way that \u2026 the goals went in\u2026 I think it was a battle out there, I\u2019m sure you guys could see that and yeah, both teams were going for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in the second half you could see us get on the front field a little bit more and we just weren\u2019t able to capitalise on the opportunities that were created and I think that\u2019s what happened today.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 I could tell you there wasn\u2019t much time on the ball, especially in the first half. Every time the ball came into me and Paul, we didn\u2019t really have a second.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe battled hard in there and everyone gave everything they\u2019ve got and sometimes football is harsh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps the comments of Mohamed Toure \u2013 who played 45 minutes up front before being substituted off at the break \u2013 were the most telling, and point to where changes could be made against Paraguay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt a bit alone,\u201d Toure said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like it was just tough. They\u2019re big boys, they\u2019re strong and physical.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd having to battle them alone\u2026 I struggled a bit with that and it was a bit frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of the talk in the aftermath of this match has revolved around Popovic\u2019s decision to drop both players who scored against Turkiye from his starting XI.<\/p>\n
Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe both made an impact when they entered at half-time, with the public desperate to see the former deployed from the start, given his x-factor in attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have preferred to start of course, for me it was the biggest game,\u201d Irankunda told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the game that I looked most forward to. I would have loved to play from the start and create some things and score some goals \u2013 obviously the coach decided different, he wanted to approach the game differently, which is fine with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI play for the team, not for myself, so I\u2019m still really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking on SBS, Ghana international Kevin-Prince Boateng went as far as to make a plea to Popovic on live TV.<\/p>\n
\u201cToure, Irankunda, Volpato. This is the guys I want to see against Paraguay,\u201d Boateng said.<\/p>\n
\u201cVolpato came in and showed so much skill. He was in between the lines, he created things, technically.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia showed that there\u2019s so much potential. Just let them loose. Let them play through the middle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was beautiful to see the second half, but why not from the beginning? So these three, I want to see them in the next game, please.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease Tony Popovic. If you can hear us, listen to us!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE, WA \u2013 There will be plenty of lessons for the Socceroos from their 2-0 loss to co-hosts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[313752,64,63,85316,160809,85329,67584,44],"class_list":["post-747890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-aiden-oneill","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-jackson-irvine","tag-jason-geria","tag-mohamed-toure","tag-nestory-irankunda","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747890","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=747890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}