Australia — 2026 World Cup Squad

Graham Arnold's old grit gets a fresher coat of paint this time. Group D sees the Socceroos sorted with Turkiye, whose Calhanoglu-Guler axis makes second place the realistic ceiling, so qualification likely hinges on the fine margins these sides have always thrived on. Mathew Ryan, now at Levante, remains the spine of it all, a goalkeeper whose reading of the game papers over more cracks than the scoreline ever admits.

The intrigue, though, lives further up. Jordan Bos has turned a Feyenoord move into a genuine attacking weapon down the left, overlapping with the kind of menace Australia have rarely had from full-back. Behind him, the towering Harry Souttar and Parma's Alessandro Circati form a centre-back pairing built for exactly the low-block, set-piece-heavy football Arnold favours. Cristian Volpato, the Sassuolo forward who once looked Italy-bound, offers the unpredictability between the lines.

That Volpato chose green and gold over the Azzurri is the storyline worth following. With Aiden O'Neill anchoring midfield from New York City, this is a tidier, more technical Australia than the one that scrapped through Qatar.