Socceroos seek to continue World Cup momentum as China pose latest roadblock | World Cup 2026 qualifiers

When the Socceroos first hit the training track in Hangzhou, the team bus parked next to the final installations marking the finish line of the Linping half marathon. It felt apt as, with four years between tournaments, the process of World Cup qualifying is as much a marathon as the month-long tournament itself is a mad sprint to the finish. It’s not about how you start the race but how you finish it. Ahead of Tuesday’s qualifier against China, the Socceroos are being asked to produce one final kick.

No matter what series of results from this week’s Asian qualifiers are fed through the abacus, Australia cannot qualify for the 2026 World Cup by beating China. Unlike Japan, who secured passage to North America with a 2-0 win over Bahrain last week, that right has not been earned just yet. The reverberations from a calamitous opening window last September in particular – when they suffered a home defeat to Bahrain and played out a scoreless draw with Indonesia – are still being felt seven months on.

But, following on from a 5-1 victory over a spirited Indonesia in Sydney last week, another win can put the Socceroos in a commanding position to go on and punch those tickets in in June with final Group C fixtures against Japan and Saudi Arabia. If they can stay at least a point clear of Saudi Arabia – who have to face the undefeated Japan in Saitama – destiny would be in their own hands and they may even have something approaching a level of margin for error. The chance to book a spot on sport’s biggest stage without having to go through a playoff for the first time since 2014 would suddenly feel real.

At the start of the qualifying, that was a scarcely believable outcome. After the drama of recent playoffs, something resembling a straightforward qualification process almost feels incongruous for this side. If you’d asked a Socceroos supporter in the immediate aftermath of that stalemate in Jakarta, they wouldn’t have believed it. If you’d asked Jackson Irvine eight minutes into the clash with Indonesia, when Kevin Diks was lining up to take a penalty that could have made it 1-0, even his resilience may have been tested.

“It’s key moments in games as you move through,” Irvine said. “You have to believe in the core of what it is that you’re doing. There’s going to be games that don’t go your way, there’s going to be moments that don’t go your way. But when you fall back to your baseline, when you have a core of something that we all trust and believe in, when it comes to the end, when you see the big picture, then you should hopefully have achieved what you set out to do.”

But before the Socceroos can even start to think about a strong dash to the line in June, they first need to navigate the potential roadblock in China. Branko Ivanković’s side fell to a 1-0 defeat in Riyadh last week but looked strong in their early attempts to sit back and frustrate Saudi Arabia, before faltering when Lin Liangming saw red on the stroke of half-time and Salem Al-Dawsari scored the game’s only goal five minutes into the second stanza.

A win in Hangzhou is not certain but it’s also not an unfair expectation. And results, ultimately, are something of a be-all and end-all for Popovic right now. Given just weeks to prepare for his first qualifiers after Graham Arnold’s shock resignation last October, the coach wasn’t employed to build for the future. His job was to get the Socceroos back on track and qualified for 2026, as evidenced by his decision to call up veteran Mitch Duke as an injury replacement player for these games, rather than untried and untested youth of Noah Botić or Nicholas Milanovic.

Three draws and a win in the coach’s first three games steadied the ship after a stumbling start, but this was the window where things needed to start picking up steam. Indonesia started that process. Now, lest any nascent sense of optimism get turned on its head, that needs to continue.

“It’s moments, small moments in international football, the smallest sort of detail,” assistant Hayden Foxe said. “One step here, one step there, or one missed opportunity. We have to be able to control the game. That’s very important.

“You have to be calm as much as possible. Just keep believing our philosophy, our way of playing. Don’t get don’t stressed, it doesn’t matter the scoreline. Keep believing, keep playing to our structures and our way, and you will find the moment.”