World Cup qualifiers 2025 LIVE: Socceroos meet Indonesia in crucial clash

Tony Popovic has named a very interesting line-up, as is his way.

Adam Taggart gets a start up front over Kusini Yengi, which is a surprise – not many people had Taggart in their squads, let alone in the XI for such a crucial game.

He’s been in decent form for a very average Perth Glory team in the A-League and needs to seize this opportunity. The inverted wingers are Martin Boyle and Nishan Velupillay, which means Craig Goodwin and his wand of a left foot is on the bench. The rest of the team is as expected, with Aiden O’Neill getting the nod as the midfielder next to Jackson Irvine.

Not in the squad at all are Alex Grant, Marco Tilio and Nectar Triantis, so they will take no part in the match tonight.

Clearly, some of these selections have been made with a nod to next week’s clash in China; Popovic has so far made substantial changes from one match to another, so expect those on the bench (or not on it) to be rotated on Tuesday night.

But for now, the Socceroos just need to get through this match against an Indonesian side featuring only one player born in that country: Marselino Ferdinan.

This will be a much bigger challenge than perhaps most Aussies anticipate. And especially given the crowd – more than 40,000 tickets have been sold, and a staggering amount of them to Indonesian fans. The whole south end is filled with red shirts, and there’s even a few sprinkled in the Socceroos’ home end. Gulp.