World Cup qualifiers 2025 LIVE: Socceroos meet Indonesia in crucial clash

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Have your say: can the Socceroos win?

More sport from a fellow blogger

If one live match isn’t enough for you, then we’ve got you covered.

The Penrith Panthers are taking on the Melbourne Storm in a grand final rematch down south, and fellow rugby league fanatic Paul Zalunardo is live blogging that match.

Mitch Kenny warms up ahead of their clash with Melbourne.Credit: Getty Images

Catch all the action here.

World Cup qualifiers could be Arzani’s last chance to prove he’s a star

By Vince Rugari

Daniel Arzani should be a superstar by now. Should be, but isn’t.

It’s been eight years since he emerged as Australia’s next great hope in the months preceding the 2018 World Cup, his blistering form for Melbourne City earning him a spot in then-coach Bert van Marwijk’s squad for the tournament, where he was the youngest player to get on the pitch.

Daniel Arzani at training on Wednesday in Sydney.Credit: Getty Images

As the quadrennial bandwagoners clamoured for van Marwijk to bring a 38-year-old Tim Cahill off the bench in Russia to get the Socceroos out of jail again, real football heads knew Arzani was the only true game-changer in the national team’s ranks.

Only he possessed the sort of game-breaking creative instincts that Australian players too rarely exhibit, and the confidence – arrogance, sometimes, it felt like – to actually take players on in one-vs-one situations.

Read the full story on Arzani here.

Socceroos starting XI

By Vince Rugari

Tony Popovic has named a very interesting line-up, as is his way.

Adam Taggart gets a start up front over Kusini Yengi, which is a surprise – not many people had Taggart in their squads, let alone in the XI for such a crucial game.

He’s been in decent form for a very average Perth Glory team in the A-League and needs to seize this opportunity. The inverted wingers are Martin Boyle and Nishan Velupillay, which means Craig Goodwin and his wand of a left foot is on the bench. The rest of the team is as expected, with Aiden O’Neill getting the nod as the midfielder next to Jackson Irvine.

Not in the squad at all are Alex Grant, Marco Tilio and Nectar Triantis, so they will take no part in the match tonight.

Clearly, some of these selections have been made with a nod to next week’s clash in China; Popovic has so far made substantial changes from one match to another, so expect those on the bench (or not on it) to be rotated on Tuesday night.

But for now, the Socceroos just need to get through this match against an Indonesian side featuring only one player born in that country: Marselino Ferdinan.

This will be a much bigger challenge than perhaps most Aussies anticipate. And especially given the crowd – more than 40,000 tickets have been sold, and a staggering amount of them to Indonesian fans. The whole south end is filled with red shirts, and there’s even a few sprinkled in the Socceroos’ home end. Gulp.

The 1 percenters driving Popovic’s Socceroos

By Vince Rugari

Jackson Irvine has given plenty of sweat and tears to the Socceroos’ cause over the years – and now, finally, blood.

It wasn’t spilled on the field but rather drawn from his arm while at his club FC St. Pauli, as advised by coach Tony Popovic and the national team’s new dietician Julie Meek, to help further understand his body, how it works and what to feed it to reach peak performance.

Socceroo Jackson Irvine.Credit: Getty Images

The gains are marginal, but they add up. Such is the Popovic revolution and the finer details he insists upon, from nutrition to sleep and everything in between.

At 32, Irvine is one of the older dogs in the current Australian set-up, but not so old he isn’t open to learning new tricks in accord with whatever his blood test results dictate.

Read the full story here.