{"id":87114,"date":"2026-06-22T09:04:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T23:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/?p=87114"},"modified":"2026-06-22T09:04:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T23:04:05","slug":"live-by-poppa-die-by-poppa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/2026\/06\/live-by-poppa-die-by-poppa\/","title":{"rendered":"Live by Poppa. Die by Poppa.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In\u00a0Snatch,\u00a0<\/em>when<\/a> Tommy is explaining to Turkish why he put Gorgeous George into a bare-knuckle boxing match,\u00a0Turkish reacts angrily.\u00a0Tommy asks him, \u201cwho took the jam out of your doughnut?\u201d Turkish replies, incredulously, \u201cYou did. You took\u00a0the jam out of my doughnut.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s each of confused, bemused, and angry.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve never fully understood what it\u2019s like to have the jam taken out of my doughnut. My doughnuts have always been at least half jam-filled as I\u2019ve been one or two of confused, bemused, or angry but never all of them.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching the Socceroos first half, however, I understood.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who took the jam out of my doughnut?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Popovic.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think this country has collectively been as excited for a game since the opener in 2006 against Japan.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The combination of the chattiness of the Americans, the political climate heading into the game, and the fact that we love beating America\u00a0was like one of those spells in\u00a0Widow\u2019s Bay\u00a0<\/em>that got everyone walking into the river toward the effigy at once, except it was a zombified country getting up to 4:45 am alarms.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we woke up with the jam out of the doughnut pretty much as soon as we all saw that starting XI included the old warhorse Mat Leckie and the average Nishan Velupillay instead of the goalscorers Connor Metcalfe and Nestory Irankunda.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It felt like we sacrificed both our most important counterattacking threat and our best Mr Fix It player for an old legend who\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0run anymore and a guy who\u00a0probably is\u00a0no good.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s exactly how it played out in real time as we struggled to get any foothold in the first half of the game, particularly in midfield.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\u00a0Irankunda\u00a0was the story, I feel like not having Metcalfe was the bigger problem in the first half. His\u00a0work rate\u00a0down the flanks to fill gaps is so crucial to the way Australia wants to\u00a0defend, and\u00a0not having him left gaping holes for the Americans to sprint into\u00a0time and again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes Metcalfe can fly under the radar because he papers over so many cracks so effectively that they never appear, but when he\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0out\u00a0there\u00a0I feel like we gained a greater appreciation for him. It was\u00a0kind of like\u00a0the Charlie Sheen in\u00a0Two and a Half Men<\/em>\u00a0situation, where a guy\u2019s value becomes clearer in their absence.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the two goals they scored were bullshit, certainly the first one happened at least in part because Metcalfe wasn\u2019t there to help defend their surge down the flank.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We lost the game in the first half and now\u00a0have to\u00a0listen to that pig Mike Grella lecture us about how \u201cfootball spoke\u201d or whatever.<\/a>\u00a0Americans are also genuinely wondering if they can now win the World Cup because of what Poppa did,\u00a0and that might be unforgivable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you live by Poppa and you die by Poppa. He\u2019s in Luke Beveridge areas of taking massive swings and either coming off as a genius or a fool.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first game, with Beach and Okon-Engstler, he was a genius. In this one with Leckie and Velupillay, he was a fool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is not the time for Australia to despair. Firstly, Australia\u2019s second half with our best players on the park was much better.\u00a0We also probably should have got at least one, if not two,<\/a> penalties from a referee who had a poor day, according to the unbiased Tony Popovic.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the other thing to note is that after Curacao drew with Ecuador, The Athletic has us a 90% chance to get through to the second round. If we get at least a draw against Paraguay, we\u2019ll be second in the group and likely play one of New Zealand, Iran or Egypt.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with the success of the first game and the second half of the second, I think Poppa has learned a valuable lesson: in tournament football, you need to play your best players.\u00a0You could feel it with how he talked so proudly about the second half. He knew it was a completely different game with those players on.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that vein, I have a three-item\u00a0wishlist\u00a0for the Paraguay game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, we clearly need to see Irankunda starting alongside Mo Toure. Anyone criticising Mo Toure is a moron. He\u2019s clearly the best hold-up and target player that we\u2019ve had since at least Tim Cahill but potentially Mark Viduka. He\u2019s such a valuable structural player that Nestory can run off.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, Metcalfe needs to play as much as he can. He\u2019s such an important player both with the ball and also, crucially, without the ball.<\/a> In the Paraguay game, which is going to be attritional, we need as many dogfighters as we can get and Metcalfe is exactly that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third – and I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m typing this given how much I motherfucked him when he defected – we need to start Volpato, or at least see him early. With the way he played when he came on versus America, I\u2019m like the U.S. welcoming Lee Harvey Oswald back after he defected to the Soviet Union.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s open arms, brother.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It feels like the Paraguay game is going to be defined by one moment of genius. Volpato showed himself capable of those moments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it\u2019s Poppa, I don\u2019t expect to get all three. He rarely does what the fans want, and more often than not he\u2019s right.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as we live and die by his mercurial genius, I just hope he remembers that we want the jam in our doughnut on Friday afternoon as the whole country ignores work.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia has a massive chance to advance to the knockout rounds for just the third time in our history, and, if we finish second, we have the chance to win a knockout game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after that American game, I have faith in Poppa. I have faith in us. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0Snatch,\u00a0when Tommy is explaining to Turkish why he put Gorgeous George into a bare-knuckle boxing match,\u00a0Turkish reacts angrily.\u00a0Tommy asks him, \u201cwho took the jam out of your doughnut?\u201d Turkish replies, incredulously, \u201cYou did. You took\u00a0the jam out of my doughnut.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s each of confused, bemused, and angry.   I\u2019ve never fully understood what it\u2019s like to have the jam taken out of my doughnut. My doughnuts have always been at least half jam-filled as I\u2019ve been one or two of confused, bemused, or angry but never all of them.   Watching the Socceroos first half, however, I understood.   Who took the jam out of my doughnut?   Tony Popovic.   I don\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":87115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8298,8],"tags":[],"hub_post_cat":[],"class_list":["post-87114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guywholikessport","category-soccer"],"acf":{"md_tip_date":"","md_tip_date_end":"","md_market_url":"","tip_date":"22\/06\/2026","event_country":"Australia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87116,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87114\/revisions\/87116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87114"},{"taxonomy":"hub_post_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub_post_cat?post=87114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}