FIFA World Cup qualifiers 2024 LIVE updates: Socceroos v Bahrain ...

The players are out on the field, the stands are full of scarves and the Socceroos bench are belting out Advance Australia Fair. Arnold has his hand on his chest, Star-Spangled Banner style. Speaking of Arnold, he briefly spoke with Channel Ten about 10 minutes ago about Circati starting at right-back.

“The belief and the confidence the kid has, and it is something we are always looking for the future potentially,” Arnold said. “Last night watching him [at training], you would have thought he had been playing there all year.”

It’s worth keeping an eye on Martin Boyle, both tonight and in upcoming matches. He’s on the wrong side of 30 now and in surprising news will be even older when the 2026 World Cup finally arrives. Yep, he’s probably the right bloke for tonight, but how long he remains a key man in the first choice XI remains to be seen.

Martin Boyle.Credit: Getty Images

Another home qualifier will likely mean another Socceroos side trying to unpick a packed defence from an Asian opponent. It often doesn’t make for great entertainment, you can’t blame Australia’s opponents for doing it time and again. Even an early goal from Australia probably won’t force a massive change of plan. Sit back, annoy the Socceroos and hope for the best in the last 20.

Yep, you heard that correctly. Last week Sydney FC announced the signing of Douglas Costa, who has arrived in Australia (and joined OnlyFans). Now Western Sydney have unveiled their own marquee in the form of the former Manchester United and Chelsea talisman.

You can read all about it in our breaking report just published.

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G’day from the glorious Gold Coast, and the brilliant Cbus Super Stadium at Robina, which is slowly filling up. Tonight’s match is sold out. I used to live up here and interned for Clive Palmer’s old Gold Coast United, and I have never seen this place even remotely full, let alone for a game of football, so that’s exciting. The weather is also glorious - perfect conditions for football - but this being the Gold Coast, that’s hardly news.

To the team Graham Arnold has selected: Nestory Irankunda will come off the bench, but there is a surprise in the selection of Alessandro Circati at right-back. He plays as a central defender for Parma in Serie A but has experience playing at fullback and will probably act as a more stay-at-home player in that position rather than be asked to bomb on. Let’s see what that looks like.Elsewhere, Kusini Yengi is up front with Craig Goodwin and Martin Boyle on the wings, and a midfield comprising Jackson Irvine, Connor Metcalfe and Aiden O’Neill. It all looks more than good enough to account for Bahrain tonight; anything less than a win and a three-point start to the next round of World Cup qualification will be considered a failure.

More to the point: what is there not to like about six wins from six games with 22 goals scored and none conceded? This is not an unusual scenario in the early stages of qualifying, but there were also signs of promise in the evolution of the squad since Qatar 2022. Arnold, since re-signing for another cycle, has continued his changing of the guard since taking over after Russia 2018, and the pool from which he can draw appears to be constantly expanding.

The headline name this window is Nestory Irankunda, the 18-year-old who signed for Bayern Munich and has spent the last few months training alongside Harry Kane, Thomas Müller, Leroy Sane and co, and is pushing for a first-team Bundesliga debut in the coming weeks. Irankunda made his Socceroos debut against Bangladesh in June and scored a week later against Palestine in Perth, and could be used up top in these two games. To say there has been a lot of hype around the kid would be an understatement, though Arnold is confident he won’t suffer the same fate as some of Australia’s other great hopes of the past two decades.

As Vince reported yesterday:

Expectations are rising on the Socceroos in accord with the progress of players’ individual careers, with Cameron Burgess, Alessandro Circati and Nestory Irankunda part of a handful of those who are now at club’s in Europe’s top-five leagues; not so long ago, there were no Aussies at that level.

All eyes will be on Nestory Irankunda this window.Credit: Getty Images

Hello and welcome to what feels like the first Socceroos game in a bit of a while. If you have a similar feeling, that’s because the men’s national team haven’t played since back in June. That was a 5-0 win over Palestine to wrap up the second round of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. As that sentence suggests, they are now about to embark on the third round of qualifying.

In the past, the third round has been the final round. But also in the past, Gianni Infantino’s 48-team-World-Cup brain aneurysm had not yet been implemented. Now there will be fourth rounds and fifth rounds and then the inter-confederation play-offs Australia know so well from cycles past.

Graham Arnold, of course, will hope to be involved in none of that, meaning his Socceroos must finish in the top two of their six-team group. Do that by June next year and they will have sealed direct qualification to the 2026 tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico. But Group C is not easy. Australia are up against Japan and Saudi Arabia, in large part because of a failure to capitalise on rankings points at January’s Asian Cup.

It makes tonight’s opening clash against world No.80 Bahrain at Cbus Super Stadium on the Gold Coast and next Tuesday’s away fixture to world No.133 Indonesia critical indeed. Not just for confidence, but also for points and goal difference and all those things that become important further down the track.

I am looking after you tonight from the Bowral bureau, Vince Rugari is on the Gold Coast, and Paul Zalunardo will dip in from North Sydney.

Harry Souttar and Jackson Irvine warm up for training on the Gold Coast this week.Credit: Aleksandar Jason/Football Australia