{"id":494856,"date":"2026-06-16T03:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T03:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/494856\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T03:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T03:11:08","slug":"australia-wont-baby-players-about-social-media-use-before-usa-world-cup-clash-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/494856\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia won\u2019t \u2018baby\u2019 players about social media use before USA World Cup clash | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Australia\u2019s players are mature \u2060enough to handle the \u2060hype ahead of \u200btheir high-profile <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/world-cup-football\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Cup<\/a> match against co-hosts the United States and do not need staff to tell them to get off \u2060social media, assistant coach Hayden Foxe has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Socceroos meet the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/usfootballteam\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">USA<\/a> in Seattle on Friday, with both sides pumped up by home media and \u2060football pundits after winning their Group D openers against Turkey and Paraguay respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Several US commentators \u200bhave written off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/australia\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Australia<\/a> as a problem \u200cfor the co-hosts, including \u200cformer centre back Alexi Lalas who judged them an \u201caverage team by any measure\u201d in his \u200cpre-tournament rankings of the 48 participating nations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Foxe said there was no need to shield Australia\u2019s players from the outside noise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWe can\u2019t baby them. They\u2019re their own selves, we want them to be their own selves,\u201d the former Socceroos centre-back said. \u201cSocial media\u2019s out there, they\u2019re aware of media and the comments and what\u2019s being said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cBut we\u2019re \u200cconcentrated on us. They\u2019re old enough and mature enough to understand what gets said and what doesn\u2019t get said.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Australia, who have never got past \u200bthe round of 16, enjoyed a dream start in upsetting Turkey 2-0 with classy goals by livewire attacker Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Irankunda said Australia\u2019s players were fired up by Turkey captain Hakan Calhanoglu describing his team as more talented than the Socceroos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt did piss off a few \u2060boys, but at the end of the day, these guys can talk \u200ball the shit &#8230; we \u200bdon\u2019t really care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Metcalfe \u200bsaid Tony Popovic-coached Australia would go into the US match \u201cfull of energy, \u200bfull of confidence\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Foxe warned \u200chis players not \u200bto get too \u200bcarried away, though, reminding how everyone got excited at Qatar 2022 when Saudi Arabia upset eventual champions Argentina only to crash out of the group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cFantastic win against Turkey. Memorable, great. Enjoy that moment,\u201d he said. \u201cNow that\u2019s gone. Now we move on to the US.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s players are mature \u2060enough to handle the \u2060hype ahead of \u200btheir high-profile World Cup match against co-hosts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-494856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}