Australia 1 Egypt 1 (2-4 penalties)
Australian football missed a once-in-a-generation chance on Friday, falling once more at the first knock-out stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in a penalty shoot-out against a wily Egypt team in Dallas. Emam Ashour headed the Pharaohs into an early lead and there was scope for more damage before the Socceroos found their way to goal from a delicious Aiden O’Neill free kick that was deflected home by defender Mohamed Hany. A further hour of play produced thrills and spills that kept the Aussie fans on edge, including a world-class save by Patrick Beach, but ultimately the toss of the coin penalty shoot-out was to reward Egypt for their superior finishing and the Socceroos bowed out disappointingly when it could have been so different. But the football was only half of the story.
Congregating at 7am in the backyard area of the now legendary Arlington venue Texas Live!, the remaining Socceroos fans who had made their way east across two time zones from San Francisco were joined by newcomers who had jumped at the opportunity and had flown in from around the world especially for this big game. Highlights of the group stage pre-games played on the big screens, a DJ spun a specially mixed selection of Aussie tunes, the boys in the middle table got the crowd chanting, and the cheerleaders from the local baseball team joined the party to spice things up and allow photo ops for everyone. The call to make the 500-metre jourmey to the stadium was met with “Who are ya?” from the throng who were keen to stay on longer and take advantage of the vodka jelly syringes being handed out, but once the organisers with the drums were on their feet, it was time to file out into the wide boulevard for the short walk to the stadium.
The idea was not to get into the stadium early; today the Aussie fans were to form a guard of honour for the team bus, set to arrive at the stadium at 11am. This was to be at a parking lot near the local Walmart shopping centre, and a combination of merriment, curiosity and Chinese whispers ended with the majorty of Aussie fans entering the Walmart hypermarket to take over the aisles with another selection of chants. That gave some fans the idea of purchasing packs of beers, and once the crowd had returned to the boulevard and word got round of the fans having walked a little too far past the bus entrance, we had a beautiful sight of fans of all nationalities sharing cans of ice-cold beer in the near 40-degree heat. One random Mexican fan was dancing and handing out beers from a trolley while the Aussie fans chanted ‘One of us! One of us!’.
With the fans now back at the right place, there was more chanting and hi-jinks as we waited for the bus. A police buggy became a refuge from the heat, the ice-cool waters in the esky handed to those in need in the hot sun. An unsuspecting Texan was encouraged to fill his cowboy boot for a shoey, and the team bus eventually arrived, those smokies from Vancouver coming in handy to make an incredible scene as the team arrived. They were left in no doubt that Australian fans were here to lend the maximum of support from the stands.
It was now two hours before kick off, time to get into the stadium precinct via the airport-style security. Media ticket cancelled, this was the full fan experience today, echoing the Argentina game in Qatar where the constraints of the press area were deemed unacceptable for the expected high emotions of the day. Massively overpriced beers aquired, it was time to take up position on the mezzanine level right on the back row, affording us the luxury of standing without blocking any views for the whole game. Everyone stood anyway. The line-up looked strong, confidence was tentatively high against a relatively unknown opponent, and the sight of Mo Salah in the Egypt line-up confirmed that his injury worries were a complete hoax. Australia had three distinct sections of the stadium; the usual friend and family behind the bench, the category 1 tickets behind the goal and the FA+ cheapskates on the mezzanine level. Yellow flecks punctuated the rest of the mainly red fans, and the stadium was buzzing by the time the players emerged and the national anthems were belted out.
Look, there’s no point in going into the details of the game as you would have definitely watched it. Australia were caught by a sucker-punch as I went down for a piss – the half-time squeeze to get in the bathroom was ridiculous, the women laughing at how long the line was for the men’s rest room. The Socceroos could and should have gone for it in the second half; the score could have been two or three just after half time, so the gods were smiling. Instead, the creative players were sacrificed and we appeared content to take the game to extra time and then penalties, perhaps not the swashbuckling we were craving in the stands. Nails were bitten to death, we were watching through our hands through added time at the end of the 90 minutes, and Beach’s save was outstanding to keep us in the game.
Echoes of that famous Peru game and Tim Krul’s heroics in Brazil for Holland saw Beach replaced with Maty Ryan with seconds remaining; a few of us had called it already in the stands but with Beach having played a blinder, it seemed a little risky throwing our cold captain into the fray after zero minutes play in the world cup. In Popa we trust.
There was a feeling of inevitability as Harry Souttar held his head in his hands after missing the target with the first penalty, and Egypt made no mistake with their spot kicks, completing the job after Lucas Herrington had smashed his off the cross bar. The life had been sucked out of the Socceroos fans from the first penalty, and by the final penalty from Hossam Abdelmaguid, we already knew it was too big an ask for Egypt to miss two penalties.
The Australian players stood like statues, not knowing what to do, as the Egypt squad rejoiced. Some of the players offered their applause to the fans, some seemed too distraught to do anything. The mood in the stands was of numbness. We’d seen it through all the round of 32 games so far, one team’s fans in ecstacy and the other’s united in adject dismay. Unfortunately we had fallen on the wrong side of the coin, and a number of fans just sat in silence until it was time to vacate the stadium. The Egypt fans were bouncing in the stadium concourse, the rest of the fans made their way through the parklands and back to Texas Live! to wipe away the pain with another hatful of expensive drinks over the next two round of 32 games. The supporter drums were donated to some locals who were connected with a football club, many fans had already changed their flights and were off to the airport, there was an end-of-story feel to the night.
Finally calling time after the Columbia game, we had been in party mode for more than 15 hours, sweating out as much as we were putting in, and it was some relief to get back to the airconditioning of our AirBnB to sleep off the excesses of a fantastic day.
The World Cup is over for Australia. The trip is over for our football-loving group, and all three host nations have given us a super time. Don’t believe everything you read about the United States. It’s not all doom and gloom; it’s expensive, especially on the West Coast, the car is king in Dallas, public transport is unfeasible and tipping on top of already massive prices makes no sense whatsoever to cost-conscious Aussies. Bathrooms at pubs are invariably too small to cope with the numbers – we’ve seen this in Canada too – lines out the door for the men’s bathroom is just silly. They don’t do troughs! We’ve had weather that ranged from chilly in San Jose to dripping wet hot in Mexico to 40-degree dry heat in Texas, but those jumpers we brought were totally pointless. We’ve had our challenges with flight cancellations and delays, but we’ve not missed any of the action, and we hope that the scenes out of Granville Street in Vancouver, Victory Hall in Seattle, San Pedro Square in San Jose and Texas Live! in Dallas have encouraged more fans to get on board with the national football teams when they’re in action at home and abroad.