{"id":677047,"date":"2026-06-01T02:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T02:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/677047\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T02:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T02:03:09","slug":"world-cup-2026-uncapped-yengi-and-volpato-made-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/677047\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Uncapped Yengi and Volpato made squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Livingston striker Tete Yengi and former Italy Under-21 winger Cristian Volpato have been named in Australia’s 26-man squad for the World Cup despite the uncapped duo being late additions to Tony Popovic’s pre-tournament training squad.<\/p>\n

But 41-times capped Hibernian forward Martin Boyle is one of those who misses out.<\/p>\n

Yengi had been loaned out by Livingston to Japanese club Machida Zelvia in January despite his parent club struggling to avoid relegation from the Scottish Premiership.<\/p>\n

But the 25-year-old caught Popovic’s eye after scoring six goals in 22 appearances as his new side finished third in Japan’s East Region – and reached the final of the Asian Champions League.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, world governing body Fifa ratified Sassuolo 22-year-old Volpato’s decision<\/a> to switch on Friday.<\/p>\n

Former Brighton & Hove Albion goalkeeper Mat Ryan, now of Levante, and Melbourne City striker Mathew Leckie are poised to equal the national record by being selected for a fourth World Cup.<\/p>\n

Former Dundee United left-back Aziz Behich, now of Melbourne, and former Hull City midfielder Jackson Irvine, now at St Pauli are on track to feature at their third.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Heart of Midlothian midfielder Cammy Devlin and Aberdeen-born Leicester City centre-half Harry Souttar, whose brother John is in the Scotland squad, are among those chosen for their second.<\/p>\n

Also included are Swansea City centre-half Cameron Burgess, Watford winger Nestory Irankunda, Norwich City striker Mohamed Toure<\/p>\n

Popovic said: “Some difficult decisions had to be made \u2013 that’s the nature of major tournaments. <\/p>\n

“But it’s also a credit to all the players involved over the past few weeks who worked extremely hard during an extended and challenging pre-camp.”<\/p>\n

Former Hearts defender Kye Rowles, now with DC United, had also been added late to the training squad but did not make the final selection.<\/p>\n

Australia face Switzerland in their final pre-tournament friendly on Saturday before opening their finals campaign against Turkey on 14 June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Livingston striker Tete Yengi and former Italy Under-21 winger Cristian Volpato have been named in Australia’s 26-man squad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-677047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}