SANTA CLARA, California, June 23 (Reuters) – \u2060Australia head into their final World Cup group match against Paraguay with their fate in their \u2060hands, needing only a draw to reach the knockout phase, while the South Americans face a \u200cmore daunting scenario if victory proves elusive.<\/p>\n
With the United States having already sealed top spot in Group D and Turkey eliminated,Australia and Paraguay will battle for second place to earn a potentially easier opponent in the round of 32.<\/p>\n
A winning team at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium \u200bon Thursday will play the second-placed team in Group G, which \u2060remains wide open before leading Egypt face second-placed \u2060Iran and third-placed Belgium meet New Zealand.<\/p>\n
The loser would be condemned to relying on other results to advanceas \u2060one \u200cof the eight highest-ranked third-place finishers.<\/p>\n
A draw provides an intriguing scenario for both teams, though, as Paraguay would be highly likely to advance with Australia on four points each, leaving the chance that pragmatism outweighs \u2060a full-blooded push for victory.<\/p>\n
With scores locked in the second half, Australia, \u200bparticularly, may be tempted to minimise \u200crisk and maintain the status quo.<\/p>\n
Not that Socceroos defender Jason Geria was having any of it.<\/p>\n
“I \u2060think you’re cheating the \u200bgame in a way if you’re looking to just call a truce with 10 minutes to go, that doesn’t seem right in my opinion,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, we could both progress with a point, that’s evident, but I don’t think it’s in us \u2060to just concede or just take the foot off the gas.”<\/p>\n
Australia \u200bwill look to rebound from a 2-0 defeat by the U.S. in Seattle, a huge letdown for the country following their 2-0 upset ofTurkey in the opener.<\/p>\n
Tony Popovic’s starting 11 will be closely watched after the Australia coach was berated \u2060by former Socceroos players and pundits for having Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe, the goalscorers against Turkey, start on the bench against the U.S.<\/p>\n
With the match to kick off at midday on Friday for most people in the country, the national economy is tipped to grind to a halt as workers clock off early — or “chuck a sickie” (take \u200ba sick day).<\/p>\n
Paraguay bring momentum after their courageous 1-0 win over Turkey, reduced \u2060to 10 by Miguel Almiron’s landmark red card for putting his hand over his mouth.<\/p>\n
The Atlanta United attacker is banned \u200bfor the Australia clash but would be available for the round of \u200c32 if Paraguay advance.<\/p>\n
“I think amid the negatives, it’s a \u200bgood thing it’s only one match because Miguel is an important player for us,” defender Omar Alderete told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
(Additional reporting by Nathan Frandino in San Jose, California; Editing by Christian Radnedge)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA, California, June 23 (Reuters) – \u2060Australia head into their final World Cup group match against Paraguay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-756184","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\/756184","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=756184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}