The Totally Unbiased Guide to Australia vs USA

In the lead up to the World Cup many people said Group D stood for the Dark Horses, but after one match the USA and Australia are no longer dark horses. They are champion thoroughbreds, shimmering in the light as they charge down the main straight, while Turkey and Paraguay have pulled up lame at the rear, waiting for the Vet to put a tent around them.

So now we have Phar Lap vs Secretariat in the race that stops two nations.

Shit, my bad. Let’s go with Australia 2 vs Liberty in the 1983 America’s Cup.

You don’t have to worry. I’ve already done that here.

Australia will beat the USA.

Australia will beat the USA.

We should not be afraid of the USA.

Didn’t you see the Australia match against Turkey? They won’t get inside the penalty box. That thing will be locked up tighter than the US border.

To paraphrase Vince Colosimo in Chopper: There’s no 27 touches in the box here. Here, there’s no 27 touches.

Christian Pulisic is injured and very uncertain to play after being kicked in the calf by Paraguayan (which was was one of Paraguay’s only shots on target). It’s very unsporting to hope a player stays injured, so we do hope he makes a full recovery, a few days after we beat the USA.

Antonee Robinson’s nickname is Jedi. And I refuse to feel threatened by anyone nicknamed after a Star Wars character.1

Goals in Ligue 1 don’t count. Ligue 1 is just a practice league to keep PSG fit in between Champions League matches.

Yes, but both of those goals were inside the box, and I’ve already told you, “Here, no touches in the box.” Getting past the Australian back five is like trying to open the puzzle box in Hellraiser. It’s almost impossible, and even if the USA do get inside, it opens a portal to hell filled with sadistic torment, otherwise known as Harry Souttar.

Yes, but that was a very different Australia team. We started Balard, Boyle and D’Agostino who aren’t even at the World Cup. And our goalkeeper/greatest shostopper in history, Patrick Beach wasn’t in the squad against USA. So Pochettino wouldn’t want to base too many decisions on that match. He’d be much better off researching Patrick Beach and Okon-Engstler, by watching hours of A-League footage and wondering why the the teams fight to win a giant silver toilet seat.

Yes, but has Pochettino ever replaced both captains an hour before the match with two A-league players who had never played in a World Cup and then won? No.

Has Pochettino ever coached a brand new A-League team made up of players kicked out of other teams, then won a premiership in his first year and the Asian Champions League the year after that? No.2

The only reason Pochettino is coaching the USA, is he is being paid 6 million dollars by two American Hedge Fund billionaires who are bank rolling his contract. And if watching way too many sports movies in my childhood taught me anything, a mercurial loner who leads a rag-tag bunch of plucky misfits will always beat an arrogant super power with an overpaid coach on their home ground in front of evil billionaires. Tony Popovich is Emilio Estevez in Mighty Ducks, Gene Hackman in Hoosiers and John Candy in Cool Runnings all rolled into one.

Shut the fuck up.

No one knows what Tony Popovic will do. The man is playing 5D chess. And when his opponent learns how to play 5D chess, Popa invents another dimension so he can beat them at 6D chess.

Tony Popovich prepares for a match like Rust Cohle studies cold cases in True Detective. He’s been bunkered down in a storage unit somewhere in Western Sydney, moving pictures of US players around a pin board, connecting with them with red string. Tony knows time is a flat circle, and that everything we’ve ever done or will do, we’ll do over and over and over again, and every four years the USA tell everyone how great they are going to be, and then run into a team that teach them a fucking lesson. This time we are that team.

“Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning” We are the light.

You’re God Damn right Patrick Beach is going to start. After that match against Turkey, he is going to start for Australia the rest of his life. He will still be playing in his forties, five world cups from now, and will still have a clean sheet, for every World Cup match that he’s ever played in.

NESTORY IRANKUNDA!

NESTORY IRANKUNDA!!!

Over the top here… it’s Nestory, great first touch… NESTORY IRANKUNDA! OH MY WORD!!!

Australia win 3-0.

And one of the US newspapers will have a front page with Pochettino as Tom Hanks and Balogun as Meg Ryan with the headline, “GOALLESS IN SEATTLE”3

Share