Souttar returns as World Cup auditions heat up

Probably the biggest Aussies Abroad news from the weekend was about a player who didn’t even make it onto the field.

Harry Souttar made it into Leicester City’s matchday squad for the first time in well over a year, breathing life into his hopes of sneaking into the Socceroos’ World Cup squad.

He’ll have to do a lot more to convince Tony Popovic he’s ready to play on the game’s biggest stage, but just making the bench for Leicester is a pretty massive milestone for the big defender after a period that surely surpasses his injury spell in 2022 as the toughest of his career.

Another player hoping to come from the clouds and make it onto the plane to the World Cup is Zac Sapsford, who won a stoppage time penalty and duly converted it to give Dundee United victory in the Scottish Premiership.

Sapsford seems to not be in Popovic’s World Cup plans, having not yet earned a call-up to the national side, but a few more goals in Scotland and you just never know.

Elsewhere in the UK, Alex Robertson’s strong run of form continued with Cardiff City, while Raphael Borges Rodrigues gave a timely reminder of his quality with a moment of real class while playing for Wigan Athletic.

You can read more about all of the players mentioned above in our Aussies Abroad wrap from yesterday, which starts with a look at the wild celebrations that Cam Peupion took part in in the Netherlands - check out the video near the bottom of the newsletter.

Since that wrap was written there have been a few more performances of note from Australians overseas, with Patrick Yazbek and Archie Goodwin both finding the net for their respective clubs in the MLS yesterday.

And in an intriguing piece of news from last night, Jordan Bos wasn’t in the matchday squad for Feyenoord in their match in the Netherlands. We’ll keep an eye on that one.

Australia will not play at the Under-20s Women’s World Cup this year after losing their quarter-final clash at the Under-20 Women’s Asian Cup to North Korea.

The Young Matildas were very much still in the match midway through the second half after conceding early, and had some chances to equalise, before conceding a second goal on 74 minutes and then a third right on the 90 to seal the 3-0 result.

Given North Korea are the reigning world champions at the U20 level, the result is certainly no disgrace, but the fact it means the Young Matildas won’t play at the World Cup certainly gives the result a bit of a sting.

There was better news for the senior Matildas over the weekend, as they played their first game since the Asian Cup final loss last month.

Joe Montemurro’s side easily accounted for Malawi 5-0 in their FIFA Series match in Kenya, with Sam Kerr, Emily van Egmond, Holly McNamara and Alex Chidiac all finding the net.

But the brightest story out of the game was the debut of Leticia McKenna, who scored the last goal just before full-time to seal a memorable first game in green and gold.

McKenna’s Matildas debut has been a long time coming, having made her first appearance for Perth Glory way back in the 2018-19 season, when Sam Kerr was still at the club.

Get the full report on that game here. The Tillies will now play against Kenya on Wednesday night.

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A coach sent off, a $1.2 million pay day secured, a historic low for a proud club, and yet another VAR blow-up - and that was all just on Saturday!

It’s fair to say the weekend’s A-League action was pretty drama-filled, and it has gone a long way towards shaping what the ladder will look like when the regular season wraps up in a couple of weeks’ time.

Newcastle are within touching distance of securing their first ever A-League Premiership after a last-gasp draw with Adelaide on Saturday night.

With a three-point buffer over second-placed Auckland, the Jets are odds-on to finish top of the ladder but but even if they don’t, they’ve already earned a cool $1.2 million by securing qualification for the Asian Champions League Elite, a tournament they haven’t featured in for almost 20 years.

“It’s the pinnacle of our game in Asia,” Newcastle coach Mark Milligan said. “As Australian footballers playing in Australia, that’s the ultimate competition to be in.”

Adelaide boss Airton Andrioli was in a slightly less optimistic mood after seeing a goal for his side contentiously ruled out by VAR, only for the video assistants not to intervene for Newcastle’s late equaliser where it seemed an offisde call might have been forthcoming.

“Such a great game of football that I’m probably going to walk away with this bitter taste in mouth again that VAR is destroying our game,” Adrioli said, not even trying to disguise his frustration.

If he was feeling frustrated, I can’t imagine how the hardy souls who turned up to cheer on the Wanderers in Saturday’s Sydney Derby must have felt after once again watching their team suffer defeat.

In fairness to the Western Sydney players this was hardly their worst performance of a season that, if we’re being honest, they’ll be thinking can’t end quick enough. Read more on that one near the bottom of this newsletter.

And speaking of frustration, Auckland FC coach Steve Corica let his get the better of him during his team’s 2-2 draw with Melbourne Victory, with the man affectionately known as ‘Bimbi’ shown a red card after “the frustration just boiled over”, according to his assistant Danny Hay.

You can read more about that one here.

In yesterday’s action, Mat Leckie made his long-awaited return to action after almost six months out with injury, but it was his teammate Marcus Younis who stole the show.

Younis scored once and nearly added a bicycle kick goal to his ever-increasing highlights reel as Melbourne City secured their third win in a row with a 2-0 result against Wellington Phoenix.

Over in the west, Tony Popovic was in attendance as his son Gabriel scored his maiden A-League goal to lift Perth Glory to a 3-1 win over Macarthur.

Despite Perth officially having their finals hopes killed off by City’s win earlier in the day, the home side showed plenty of fight in a fiery encounter, with the result leaving Macarthur’s hopes of returning to the top six hanging by a thread.

Things are looking a bit grim in North London at the moment.

Tottenham Hotspur are still in the Premier League’s relegation zone after going down 1-0 to Sunderland overnight.

The result, which came in Roberto De Zerbi’s first game in charge, leaves Spurs three points from safety with just six leagues games remaining.

The other game played early this morning saw Manchester City blow Chelsea away via three goals in the space of 17 second half minutes.

That result means City are six points behind Arsenal but crucially, Pep Guardiola’s side have a game in hand.

It’s still too early to declare that Arsenal are bottling this one, but the players are certainly feeling the heat, especially after their shock 2-1 loss to Bournemouth on Saturday, which coach Mikel Arteta described as “a big punch to the face”.

Over in Italy, Inter Milan just wrapped up a thrilling 4-3 win over Como to take a huge step towards claiming the Serie A title, as it leaves Inter nine points clear of second-placed Napoli, who drew 1-1 with Alessandro Circati’s Parma last night.

In Germany, Bayern Munich romped to a 5-0 win over a St. Pauli side that was missing Jackson Irvine through suspension, with Bayern on track to waltz to the Bundesliga title this season.

But the biggest Bundesliga news from the weekend was the appointment of Marie-Louise Eta as head coach of Union Berlin.

Eta, who was appointed on an interim basis and is actually set to take over as coach of head coach of the club’s women’s team next season, is the first female head coach of any team in Europe’s top five men’s leagues.

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The Emerging Matildas Championships continued over the weekend, with hundreds of the most promising young players from across the country gathered in Melbourne.

If you’re still not familiar with what the Emerging Championships are, I’ll forgive you, but do yourself a favour and catch up via this article we published last week.

Our intrepid social media creator Scott Walton spent a decent chunk of his weekend down at the Home of the Matildas, where the event is taking place, and he captured some absolute gold.

From interviews with Melbourne Victory stars Grace Maher and Chelsea Blissett - who both got their big breaks via the previous iteration of the Emerging Championships - to some brilliant chats with a couple of youngsters who appear to have invented a new way of celebrating a goal, there was some great vision and there’ll be even more coming over the next few days.

Check out some of the best bits in the clips below.