Key events
From now on every Socceroos home game must start with Darude’s Sandstorm on electric guitar.
Unless they lose in which case we know who to blame.
Perth Stadium is filling up with a light show under way. Who is staying up to watch Saudi Arabia’s match? (KO 2am AEST)
In case you missed it, which I’m sure you didn’t, it’s a double-national-team-matches-week for Australia and the Matildas have already dispatched Argentina 4-0 in a friendly on Monday. Striker Amy Sayer scored two goals on her return from an ACL injury, with one more each for Michelle Heyman and Emily van Egmond.
The other news from the Matildas camp was that Joe Montemurro was finally confirmed as the new coach, taking over from interim coach Tom Sermanni.
Behich is speaking pre-game. How has he recovered from the ALM grand final?
A good five days but look, the mentality had to switch straight away. For us boys and the ones coming straight from the grand final. It’s a big game. These ones you want to be a part of with the national team and obviously with the sellout as well. It’s been an exciting few days of training and the boys are raring to go.
On what style we can expect from the Socceroos:
Nothing is going to change. When you look at our past games under the boss, obviously we’ve got better every single game and we don’t have much time when we come into games but the steps we have taken is unreal by the group. Look, we’re going to take the game to them. We’re on home soil and something we’re always excited about. It will be a cracking game.
Warm-ups
Official word is that it’s a sellout in Perth. That should be about 60,000.
Football Australia is pleased to confirm that tickets for tonight’s FIFA World Cup 2026™ Asian Qualifier between the Subway Socceroos and Japan at Perth Stadium have officially sold out.#Socceroos #AUSvJPNhttps://t.co/46nNSpoOdq
— Football Australia (@FootballAUS) June 5, 2025
The Socceroos did arrive on time to the stadium this time around … unlike last time they faced Japan.
Popovic is speaking to the broadcaster. Asked whether it’s a good time to play Japan:
I think it’s a good time for us to play anyone at the moment. We feel we’ve evolved. We’re improving. Tonight, regardless of the opponent, it’s the big stage. We need a big performance against Japan and let’s see if we can pull it off.
Japan XI
Ten changes to the Japanese side that drew 0-0 with Saudi Arabia in March. #AUSvJPN
— Joey Lynch (@joeylynchy) June 5, 2025
Aziz Behich joins the squad – and in the starting lineup – fresh(ish) from his A-League Men championship win with Melbourne City. I can’t say it was a pretty demonstration of football, that is for sure.
Australia XI
Something to give sustenance while we’re missing Jackson Irvine, thanks to Dave Squires.
Another player not featuring for the Socceroos is Nectarios Triantis. The Sunderland midfielder withdrew from the squad at the last minute as he weighs up whether to change his allegiance and turn out for Greece.
The midfielder impressed out on loan at Hibernian last season and is attracting attention from across Europe and the MLS, German side Fortuna Düsseldorf are very keen on the 22-year-old.
Tony Popovic said he’s “not too sure where it exactly sits”.
We had him in the squad for the camp, and on the day that he was supposed to travel he informed us that he’s not coming in.
He just said he’s got a lot of things on at the moment, a lot on his mind in terms of what he wants to do. We have to respect that, and we’ll see what happens.
Craig Goodwin, Nishan Velupillay, Mathew Leckie, Jackson Irvine and Kusini Yengi were all left out of the squad due to injury and fitness concerns. In their place are some long-awaited returning players and a couple of fresh faces.
As John Duerden writes, Samurai Blue have earned the right to bring a squad containing just seven players with more than 10 caps to Australia for this match. They have dominated the group, booked their World Cup tickets and now have some freedom to experiment. It certainly seems to work in the Socceroos’ favour that many of Japan’s stars have been given the OK to head off on holiday.
The Socceroos have not beaten Japan for 16 years. Coach Tony Popovic insists that can change tonight.
Every game is significant for the Socceroos. But, obviously, these last two games, for automatic qualification, we know what we need to do; we need to put that into action, and we’re confident we can do that.
My colleague Joey Lynch is on the ground at Optus Stadium to bring you the match report later.
On to those pesky permutations. Here is where things stand:
The general gist is the Socceroos can all but secure their place with a win tonight; a draw or loss make things a bit more complicated. Jack Snape has broken everything down in more detail here:
Even if they win tonight, we won’t know whether Australia have qualified automatically for absolute 100% fully certain sureness until after the Saudi Arabia v Bahrain match kicking off at Friday 2am AEST.
Preamble
Jo Khan
G’day and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the World Cup 2026 qualifier between Australia and Japan in Perth. My name is Jo Khan and I’m here to take you through the pre-game news, live football and some post-match analysis.
At the moment my brain hurts from thinking about the Group C permutations and what it means for Australia but one thing is locked in – the Samurai Blue have already booked their spot at the North America tournament. However, it is most definitely a crunch match for Australia, can they lock in an automatic qualification?
Looking back to the Socceroos most recent outing in this Asian qualifying campaign, it was goals from Jackson Irvine and Nishan Velupillay that gave Australia a crucial 2-0 win in China in late March. This solidified their spot just below Japan in the Group C table – I’ll get to those details shortly.
To the task at hand now, if you have any comments or questions feel free to send me an email.
Kick-off is in just over an hour: 7.10pm local / 9.10pm AEST / 8.10pm JST
Let’s get into it!
