The teams are in – and from what was such an exciting squad, it’s a fairly conservative starting XI from Socceroos coach Tony Popovic. Nestory Irankunda, Adrian Segecic, Nicolas Milanovic, Mohamed Toure – basically, a whole bunch of the most exciting young players in it are on the bench. We’ll of course give Popovic the benefit of the doubt, since this is a two-game series, and he will no doubt make a bunch of changes in the second half.
But back to the starting XI, and there’s a long-awaited debut for goalkeeper Paul Izzo, who plays his football at Randers in Denmark. Milos Degenek will wear the captain’s armband. And most intriguingly, it looks like Sam Silvera will be playing at right wing-back. He’s revived his career at Middlesbrough this season in a new role as a left wing-back – remember, he was an out-and-out attacking winger in the A-League – so it’ll be interesting to see if he can be effective on the right-hand side, given the Socceroos don’t have a whole lot of depth there beyond Lewis Miller.
As for the Kiwis… they look strong. Chris Wood, arguably one of the world’s most in-form strikers, has the captain’s armband and will be an absolute handful for this Australian defence.
