Follow all the football action as Australia take on Egypt for a place in the World Cup round of 16.<\/p>\n
Kick-off is 6am NZT. Follow all the action in our live blog below:<\/p>\n
Coach Tony Popovic told his Australia side to make history and put the country on the footballing map when they face Egypt in the last 32 of the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The Socceroos have never won a knockout match on football’s biggest stage, but then neither have Mohamed Salah’s Egypt.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the eve of their meeting at the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, Popovic said: “We feel great to be here, we’ve earned it and we deserve to be at this stage.<\/p>\n
“We feel relaxed, comfortable and prepared. It will be a special match and we want to show Australian football on the world stage.”<\/p>\n
Australia beat Turkey 2-0 to start their campaign in North America, then lost to co-hosts the United States, before a draw with Paraguay saw them into the last 32.<\/p>\n
The Australia squad has some talented young players, including 18-year-old centre-back Lucas Herrington, who has attracted interest from Barcelona.<\/p>\n
Sprinkled in are some older heads, and Popovic said he expects his men to show what they are all about against an Egypt side who won a World Cup match for the time time in the group stage.<\/p>\n
Popovic, the former defensive stalwart, said his side were “good enough to deliver”.<\/p>\n
“We have to do our part during the match, whether that’s 90 minutes, extra time or penalties, to create history,” he added.<\/p>\n
“I’m expecting the game to be even more difficult than what we’ve had so far, in terms of because it is a knockout game, and respect to Egypt as well.<\/p>\n
“But I also feel that we can play better. And tomorrow’s a chance to do that.<\/p>\n
“And if we perform very well, we have a chance to make history.”<\/p>\n
There is an injury doubt surrounding Egypt’s talisman Salah, the former Liverpool great, with Egypt’s coach saying he was not sure if the attacker would start the game.<\/p>\n
“We have prepared for both scenarios,” said Popovic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow all the football action as Australia take on Egypt for a place in the World Cup round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-508418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}