Socceroos winning hearts, minds and eyeballs in reaching World Cup knock

Australia is sports mad. Whether seeking fitness or greatness, sports suit the Australian climate and competitive mentality. Being a relatively young country too, sporting achievements are a particular source of national pride.

Perhaps more so than in any of the Tier 1 Test nations, Australian rugby union is forever up against the odds in its constant battle for attention amid such a diverse and high-achieving sporting firmament. The Wallabies’ upcoming Nations Championship games at home to Ireland, France and Italy are a case in point.

The games coincide with the rugby league State of Origin series.

Ireland have always been warmly welcomed here, and the 42,500-capacity Allianz Stadium has long since been sold out for the game on July 4th. But to put rugby league’s popularity in perspective, the State of Origin’s opening game, in which the NSW Blues beat the Queensland Maroons, was attended by 79,186 people at Sydney’s Accor Stadium. The second fixture drew a crowd of 91,671 at Melbourne Cricket Ground, the highest attendance in the series’ 46-year history.

The latter game also attracted an average national television audience of 4.294 million viewers, another series record,, in addition to an estimated streaming audience of 1.715 million. By comparison, the 2025 Wallabies v British & Irish Lions Test series attracted a total free-to-air audience of 2.465 million, averaging 822,000 viewers per match.

All that said, even the mighty State of Origin has been overtaken by the exploits of the Socceroos in their opening two fixtures a the 2026 World Cup, attracting an average national television audience of over 5.22 million and a total peak of over 8.19 million.

Australia’s opening win over Turkey kicked off on June 14th at 2pm in Sydney, while their 2-0 defeat to the USA last Saturday had a 5am kick-off time for those tuning in from southeastern Australia.

More than 11.6 million Australians have tuned in to SBS’s World Cup coverage over the first nine days of the tournament, and the group games thus far have consistently ranked in the daily top-10 programmes.

The Sydney Morning Herald predicted Sydney would grind to a halt when the Socceroos took on Paraguay in their final Group D fixture, with “bosses urged to embrace football fever or face a plague of World Cup cough”.

The Football Supporters Association of Australia chairman, Patrick Clancy, invoked a famous quote by former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, stating said: “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up to work on Friday afternoon is a bum”.

Many employers did indeed close up shop from lunchtime and on a drizzly, cloudy day in downtown Sydney, every bar within a 15-minute walk to the World Cup fan zone at Tumbalong Park in Darling Harbour seemed to be showing the game.

Inside the fenced-in fan zone, an initial crowd of around 2,000 gradually swelled to over 4,000, and there was a stirring rendition of Advance Australia Fair before kick-off. The vast majority were strikingly young, and male. At least half wore gold jerseys, with a fair sprinkling of Wallaby shirts among the Socceroos tops, as well as the self-appointed ultras in black, who had congregated early in front of the three large screens.

There was a strict ban on alcohol, as well as signs instructing: “No Flares, pyrotechnics and remote-controlled devices”. Despite this, one flare was set off during the interval which prompted a swift intervention from police.

The crowd remained invested. One unlikely penalty claim drew loud appeals, even on review, and there was a palpable angst in the damp air after the break whenever a more ambitious Paraguay advanced. Half-chances drew oohs and aahs, not least when the left-footed Jordy Bos, cutting in from the right, shot wide near the end, but also for Patrick Beach’s fairly routine saves as all present were acutely aware that a Paraguay goal would have meant elimination.

Given a draw would secure Australia’s place in the knock-out stages, the same likely being true for Paraguay when the third-place race is run, the game petered out for a 0-0 draw, the full-time whistle bringing slightly muted celebrations.

One outlet described the game as “nerve-shredding”, which demonstrated that, much like beauty, entertainment is in the eye of the beholder and is often coloured by our own emotional investment, as any Arsenal fan can confirm.

After many had filed away, there was one last rendition of Advance Australia Fair for the benefit of a lone TV cameraman. It made you wonder what fan zones in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway would have been like had Ireland qualified for the tournament and then made it to the knock-out stages.

Australia’s Round of 32 match in Dallas next weekend will have the decidedly unfavourable kick-off time of 4am local time in Sydney, but safe to say the bars will be open for the occasion.

The Socceroos are winning Australian hearts, minds and eyeballs.

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