The Socceroos are revelling in an historic achievement, securing back-to-back progressions to the World Cup knockouts for the first time in the team\u2019s history at the FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n
A 0-0 draw against Paraguay in Santa Clara on Friday AEST was enough to seal second spot in Group D, sealing a spot in the Round of 32 with their opponent still to be decided for a do-or-die clash in Dallas next week.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t as dramatic as what went down against Denmark four years ago when Mathew Leckie entered Australian folklore, but that will matter little for this group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always special when you qualify, it doesn\u2019t matter how easy or hard it is\u2026 it is something we shouldn\u2019t take for granted,\u201d Ajdin Hrustic told reporters after the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really did work hard for this moment and we should enjoy it\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson Irvine added: \u201cAmazing. To go back to back, to finish second in the group\u2026 a massive achievement. The group deserves it. They put a lot of work in to get to this moment, and it\u2019s another step forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now we\u2019ve got to go \u2026 and break that next barrier and be the first team to win a knockout game.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\u201cMe and Harry (Souttar) were talking about it\u2026 obviously the sense of achievement is still the same, but maybe not as dramatic (as four years ago), but yeah, it still takes nothing away from what we\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially how well we played for the first hour in the game. The game kind of died off a little bit towards the end, both teams knowing the draw kind of gets them where they want to go, but overall really pleased with performance, and of course the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry Souttar described the achievement as \u2018special\u2019, while Nestory Irankunda said he felt \u2018normal\u2019 but reiterated that being on this stage was \u2018a dream come true\u2019.<\/p>\n
Heading into this tournament, plenty of people had written off the Socceroos.<\/p>\n
In a difficult group with hosts USA, Turkiye and Paraguay, most expected Tony Popovic\u2019s side to finish last \u2013 and they certainly weren\u2019t expected to go through in second.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into the World Cup, not many people gave us a chance of finishing second,\u201d Man of the Match Aiden O\u2019Neill told reporters. \u201cThat\u2019s the belief this group has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hrustic added: \u201cThey can keep writing. We did our job, we made the country proud and we\u2019re going to enjoy this moment and go as far as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sums up who we are as a nation as footballers but also as human beings who want to succeed in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Never to be outdone, perhaps the most poignant words came from veteran Milos Degenek, who once again dropped words of wisdom after attempting to walk past the media, thinking his insights would not be of interest after a match where he did not feature.<\/p>\n
Indeed, he spoke with typical clarity when asked what this achievement says about Australian football.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe same thing we\u2019ve said, I think for a long time, you know people write us off and think we just play cricket and afl and rugby, but it\u2019s not like that,\u201d Degenek told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lot harder for us to get into the football world with 27 million people, most of them wanting to play rugby and cricket\u2026 I think we\u2019re putting football in the place where it should be in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prime minister and everyone in the country (is) saying that people should have days off\u2026 to watch us play, which is unbelievable when you have 27 million people tuning in to watch you play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s saying that you know football in Australia is growing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Socceroos are revelling in an historic achievement, securing back-to-back progressions to the World Cup knockouts for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,308052,85316,350595,44],"class_list":["post-761105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-harry-souttar","tag-jackson-irvine","tag-milos-degenek","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761105","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=761105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}