To shed the underdog tag, Australian soccer needs to have some tough conversations

July 5, 2026 — 1:38pm

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Dallas: In the afterglow of the Socceroos’ 2-0 win over Turkey a few weeks ago, Alessandro Circati said something that should still be ringing in the ears of Australian soccer’s decision-makers as they ponder their next moves.

“I don’t want to be the underdogs for the rest of my life,” Circati said.

“I want to be a team which everyone faces and is like, ‘Ah, we’ve got to play Australia’.”

He’s not alone. Judging by the response to Australia’s shattering World Cup exit against Egypt, Socceroos fans and players alike have had a gutful of gallant defeats. In the 48-team era, getting out of the group is no longer enough for anyone.

As Nestory Irankunda put it after the match: “That’s the way Australia should be. We should be pushing for more than that.”

So how do we get there? How do the Socceroos become a team that dictates a match, rather than one that habitually defers to the opposition? How do we gain the “respect” from the wider soccer world that coach Tony Popovic bemoaned was missing towards Australian teams? How do we stop “punching above our weight”, and actually move up a division or two?

These are questions that stretch far beyond Popovic, his tactics, his penalty shootout plans or his squad. They go to the heart of what kind of football nation Australia wants to become. These are not new questions; each time they have been raised in the past, the game always finds a way to avoid answering them.

So let’s finally dive........

© Brisbane Times