The Totally Unbiased Guide to Australia vs Paraguay

Australia vs Paraguay. The final group match. The stakes couldn’t be higher, or thanks to a very complicated system that FIFA didn’t think through properly when they decided to have 48 teams, where eight out of twelve third placed teams go through, the stakes couldn’t be more mathematically confusing. And as I’ve already explained I did vegie maths in Year 12, and barely managed to pass, so I’m not going into the percentages, but here’s the basic gist…

Win or draw, we finish second. Then we could get anyone from Group G, which is currently more unpredictable than Tony Popovic’s selection policy. It could be Egypt, Belgium, New Zealand or Iran (which will cause very traumatic flashbacks for anyone who was at the MCG that night in 1997).1

All those teams are preferable to the horrors that lie in wait for us, if we lose and finish third. If that happens (and it’s not going to happen, right?, RIGHT?), then we face a very nervous wait to find out if we’re one of the eight teams that go through. And while facing that very nervous wait, we will also have to endure the phrase “face a very nervous wait” from the media at least 9000 times.

But if we go through in third, we’ll face a terrifyingly good football team, which could be Portugal (shudder), Germany (serious convulsions), or France (full projectile vomit followed by uncontrollable screaming, followed by more vomitting). There’s a very slim chance we could play Norway which I kind of hope happens for the sheer physical spectacle of Erling Haaland and Harry Souttar playing on each other (although knowing Tony Popovic’s unpredictable selections he might decide two minutes before the game to play Irankunda on Haaland).

So with all that in mind, let’s get into the Totally Unbiased Guide to Australia vs Paraguay.

Australia will beat Paraguay.

Australia don’t do draws. It’s not in our Aussie DNA.

Don’t ever question Aussie DNA. That just proves you don’t have Aussie DNA. In the USA match, the referee missed a clear penalty for handball and missed another clear penalty when Metcalf had his heel stomped in the box. Players have been given red cards for covering their mouths in this world cup, yet the USA didn’t get a red card for trying to perform a live amputation on Metcalf’s foot.

It was the loss we had to have.

In every World Cup, there’s been the loss we had to have (aka TLWHTH). In 2006, Brazil beat us 2-0, but in the next match we drew with Croatia and went through to the round of sixteen, where Italy cheated, and condemned themselves to an eternity of Bad Karma which they are currently paying for now in not making the last three world cups.

Against Brazil Guus Hiddink started the match without Kewell, Aloisi and Bresciano. But you know who did start? Tony Popovic. It’s the only match Tony Popovic played in the 2006 World Cup, so Tony knows better than most you that you can’t have a successful campaign without The Loss We Had To Have.

Remember the 4-1 loss to France in the last World Cup? No you don’t. No one has ever thought about that match again (except Nathaniel Atkinson who still shrieks whenever he hears the name Mbappe), and the reason is…

That’s it. You have a bad loss early, then everyone writes you off, the media says we need to burn down the A-League, The Daily Telegraph stops pretending to like football and Craig Foster demands that former Australian captains march down to the Socceroo change rooms and feed the coach into wood chipper in front of the players. Then once your back is against the wall, you win the next match, go through to the next round, the Daily Telegraph comes out with a Socceroos commemorative poster, and Craig Foster chokes back tears and calls you a hero on national TV. And no one ever mentions TLWHTH again.

Then you’ll never be welcome in Australia again. Plus the Daily Telegraph make up a really insulting name for you, like when they called Pim Verbeek, “PIMBECILE”.2 (RIP Pimbecile)

No, that’s just The Daily Telegraph acting like a pack of arseholes. Which they do extremely well. Like the multiple times they tried to racially vilify the Western Sydney Wanderer supporters.3 Or when they referred to me as an “alleged comedian”.4

I’m just saying I know how the Western Sydney Wanderer fans felt, because I have also been unfairly vilified by The Daily Telegraph. And like the Socceroos I know what it’s like to be written off, have my back to the wall, and make a triumphant come back-

None. Because injured players means everyone writes us off, then our backs are against the wall, and we get to prove them all wrong with…

That’s right.

Tony Popovic is never going to drop a player for scoring an own goal. Tony loves an own goal. Tony scored one of the greatest own goals in the history of football, while playing for Crystal Palace against Portsmouth in the Premier League. This wasn’t some ordinary, run-of-the-mill deflection. This was a scorpion kick.

His facial expression doesn’t even change. If you took a photo of Tony Popovic right now, he would probably have the same look on his face. He knows if you’re going to stuff up, stuff up properly. Then just react like you meant it to do it all along. Think of the USA match like Tony’s own goal. It was calamitious, but you know what else it was?

No. Pure Popaball.

Pure Popaball is the beautiful art of Tony Popovic football. Pure Popaball means anything can happen at any moment. Tony didn’t know he was going to scorpion kick an own goal. Just like he didn’t know he was going to start Patrick Beach in the first game. Or start Nishan Velupillay in the second game. He doesn’t know what’s going to do, before he does it. Do you have any idea how hard that is to coach against?

Yes. But also this goal.

We’re going to win because of both those goals. The two goals might look different, but they are part of the same thing. One goal cannot exist without the other. You can’t have the perfectly executed header in his last match for Australia without the chaos of the scorpion kick own goal in the Premier League. And you can’t have the inspired, surprise selections of the match against Turkey without the calamitious selections of match against the USA. They are manifestations of the same underlying reality.

Fucked if I know. But that’s the cosmic beauty of Pure Popaball.

In the last five years Gustavo Alfaro has coached Equador, Costa Rica, and Paraguay. He’s the guy you call when you have a South American or Central American team that is on fire, and he puts out the fire, then helps a new team rise from the ashes.

He’s somewhere between Coach Carter, The Wolf from Pulp Fiction and Mike Erhmantraut in Breaking Bad.

In 2020 he took over an Ecuador team in total disarray, and took them to the World Cup, where they beat Qatar in the first match. In 2023 he took over a Costa Rican team in total disarray, took them to the Copa America, where they drew Brazil, beat Paraguay and only missed the next round by one point. And in 2024 he took over Paraguay, who’d missed three world cups in a row, were almost out of qualifying, and transformed them into a team which beat Argentina and Brazil, and made the world cup.

He built them into a tough, defensive team, which sit back and catch opponents out with fast transitions. He says he has restored Paraguayan DNA.

Uh… yeah.

Shit, I hadn’t thought about that.

Uh… Well… has Alfaro ever scored an own goal with a scorpion kick in the 85th minute of a Premier League match?

The Aussie DNA and Paraguay DNA will cancel each other out. Then we’re left with Pure Popaball.

Australia wins 4-0. See you in the round of 32.

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