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Mat Ryan and Patrick Beach. Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\nDALLAS, TEXAS \u2014 Football Australia\u2019s two most senior officials have thrown their support behind Tony Popovic after the Socceroos\u2019 World Cup elimination at the hands of Egypt in a penalty shootout.<\/p>\n
With debate back home about the decision to substitute Patrick Beach for Mat Ryan in the penalty shootout, as well as handing penalty responsibility to 18-year-old Lucas Herrington, FA CEO Martin Kugeler and Executive Director of Football Heather Garriock were asked whether they backed both decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cTony Popovic is a brave coach,\u201d Garriock said.<\/p>\n
\u201c(We saw) in the first game the courageous decisions he makes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s obviously a methodical coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I wasn\u2019t surprised when he substituted Beach for Ryan and the reason why is because that thought process would have been much prior to that. It was more the experience side of things that he focused on and he\u2019s got experts in those fields. Obviously Frank\u2019s (Juric) the goalkeeper coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that would have been thought out and I have full belief in what Tony decides.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kugeler said that Herrington was \u201cdevastated\u201d but his maturity shone through in his post game interview.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI briefly saw him after the game down in the sheds. Like all the players, he was devastated and obviously had to digest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure if you all have seen his interview after the game: what a mature interview, right? An eighteen year old, playing not only this game, a fantastic game, also the previous game being one of the key pillars to take us into the knockout stages.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo take us the whole way, 120 minutes, stepping up. What that shows us, the future is bright for Australian football. The future is bright, not only because of him.<\/p>\n
Mat Ryan and Patrick Beach. Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the young squad that we had, complemented by the experienced players, but this young squad will continue to grow. They will continue to grow with the experience that they\u2019ve gained here at this tournament. And they will become better. Asia Cup (next), they will be better in four years time and a lot of those players have got not only one but multiple tournaments in there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m watching like you guys as a fan of that \u2013 having the courage to step up in a moment like that just shows the character of a player. But it also shows the character of Tony Popovic and the coaching staff to trust the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t just (think he\u2019s) 18, I don\u2019t let him take a penalty. You trust the players, you trust the players that you put on the pitch, you trust the players who feel confident in the moment and you support them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you also support them afterwards and I really hope that not only friends and family, the coaching staff, but all of us, all the nation, stays behind him and the entire team.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Herrington, Garriock added: \u201cWhat a courageous 18-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tournament that Herrington played was incredible. In fact, arguably man of the match of yesterday. He\u2019s cool, calm, collected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the conversation was, we\u2019ve done the penalties throughout training. Who\u2019s been the best? The coaching staff would have assessed that. I know that he\u2019s been one of the top penalty takers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore importantly, when you\u2019ve got a player that puts their hand up, regardless of age, then you\u2019re going to select that player to perform on the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo age shouldn\u2019t come into it. Tony\u2019s reinforced the message about age.<\/p>\n
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Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cHe started him, he\u2019s believed in him, but not just him, in other younger players. And I think that\u2019s really, really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s only going to grow out of this, out of this journey, but just to see the maturity on the kid was unbelievable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I reflect on my career and if we look at a young Kyah Simon in the Asian Cup final in 2010, she was 16 years old, she converted the penalty, she was a hero. Lucas Harrington, if you convert the penalty, you would have been a hero too.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Popovic\u2019s future, which is currently secure until the Asian Cup, Garriock said the Socceroos boss \u201cticks all the boxes\u201d while Kugeler was emphatic in backing Popovic\u2019s re-appointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously every fan believes (they are) a great national coach,\u201d Kugeler said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd every fan will think about what can be done better. But the coaching staff and Tony Popovic is always in the best place to judge in that moment what is needed for the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn hindsight, everyone always knows knows better. But you have to make those calls in the moment based on what you\u2019ve seen in in training\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cTony Popovic has absolutely our confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kugeler added: \u201cHe took us to direct qualification, a winning streak of 11 games, building depth of the squad. And then let\u2019s look at this World Cup. Australia played one of the European powerhouses with Turkey in the first game.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2284577665.webp\")
Tony Popovic. Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cYou all have seen the scenes in Vancouver, a 2-0 win that I don\u2019t think many expected from the team, with a few very bold calls and decisions at the time. How the team came back in the second half against the US, the home nation in an electric atmosphere in Seattle. Then the very mature, very composed performance against Paraguay. Paraguay, a team that beat Germany in the round of 32. So getting out of a very difficult group in qualifying for the round of 32 has been an enormous success.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yes we\u2019re absolutely happy about the decision to extend this contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the right person to now take this group into the next major major tournament and apply all the experiences, all the learning from this this tournament into the next major tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS, TEXAS \u2014 Football Australia\u2019s two most senior officials have thrown their support behind Tony Popovic after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,233172,253467,329907,6260,44,272104,6248],"class_list":["post-779373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-heather-garriock","tag-lucas-herrington","tag-martin-kugeler","tag-mat-ryan","tag-news","tag-patrick-beach","tag-tony-popovic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779373","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=779373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}