The most staggering hire in A-League history: How did it happen?

“Weeks barely started and it’s already ruined.”

So said one particularly disgruntled Western Sydney Wanderers fan page, after finding out the stunning news that Ufuk Talay had just signed up with the club, and will take charge as head coach from the start of next season.

It’s fair to say that fan wasn’t the only Wanderers supporter to express dismay at the decision by the club to hire the recently-departed former coach of their fiercest rival.

The reaction from the fans wasn’t overly kind, and to be fair, that’s surely something the club hierarchy must have weighed up when making the decision to hire Talay; they’ve clearly decided it’s worth the blowback for the upside of what the 50-year-old can bring to the table in a coaching sense.

Either that or, as one other fan said on Reddit, “you just get the feeling the club is more interested in getting one over on Sydney.”

The move has sparked an interesting debate around whether Talay crossing the divide is going to ignite the Sydney Derby rivalry, or damage it.

So many players have already moved between supposedly fierce rivals in the A-League - in both Sydney and Melbourne - and if it becomes accepted for coaches to do the same, what does that say about the level of genuine animosity between the clubs?

And yet … common sense suggests that if anything was going to put bums on seats for the last Sydney Derby of this season, and especially at the first one next season (when Talay will actually be in charge at Wanderland), this is probably it.

If your head is spinning trying to figure out if this all means that Talay’s defection is good or bad for the league, for the Wanderers and for Sydney - well, you might not be alone.

Read the full explainer here, and get involved in the conversation via the comments section at the bottom, or on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

The Socceroos only have 90 minutes of football left before Tony Popovic selects the group of players that will join him in North America this year.

Australia’s final pre-World Cup hit out on home soil is tonight’s game against Curacao at Melbourne’s AAMI Park, and it’ll be fascinating to see what changes Popovic makes to the side that beat Cameroon on Friday.

With such limited time together as a group, the Socceroos boss has to balance the need to develop combinations between teammates with a desire to test out different players in different positions.

“It’d be nice to see whether some of those boys can get a bit of continuity and get more than one game in one position because it’s a new position for a lot of them,” Popovic mused yesterday.

“So we’re looking at that and obviously having a look at a few of the other boys that have been here in camp who have now settled and more accustomed to the environment.”

Popovic suggested Curacao will present a different kind of challenge to that put forward by Cameroon, owing to Curacao’s heavy Dutch influence.

For more background on how Curacao ended up playing in Australia ahead of their first ever World Cup, have a read of this piece.

Kick-off tonight is at 8:10pm; don’t forget you can get the latest updates in our live blog on football360.com.au.

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It’s fair to say people in the US didn’t take their team’s recent loss to Belgium very well.

Certainly not Mauricio Pochettino, the US head coach who, you’ll remember from yesterday’s newsletter, was highly critical of his side’s attitude, which apparently extends to thinking they are very handsome.

Joining Pochettino in expressing their displeasure were members of the nation’s media, who didn’t need a second invitation to voice their frustration after the 5-2 loss.

“Sometimes getting smacked in the face with reality is exactly what you need,” wrote The Athletic’s Paul Tenorio.

If this is the reaction when their team loses to one of the best sides in the world in a friendly, imagine what will happen if the Socceroos beat them at the World Cup!

The US play against Portugal tomorrow. Get the full US View here.

Tomorrow is D-Day for the 12 teams still vying for a spot at the 2026 World Cup.

Two intercontinental playoffs will take place in Mexico, with DR Congo and Jamaica going head-to-head at 8am AEDT before Iraq takes on Bolivia in a game that many Australians will be glued to, owing to Graham Arnold being Iraq’s head coach.

If you missed our piece on Arnie’s incredible journey with Iraq - which, it’s still hard to believe, started less than a year ago - have a read of that here.

But the World Cup qualification action starts early tomorrow morning, with four games between the remaining eight nations from Europe still pushing for a place at the big dance.

There will be a lot of eyes on the clash between Italy and Bosnia & Herzegovina, but from an Australian perspective the most interesting game is Kosovo vs Turkiye.

The winner of that match is going to be the Socceroos’ first opponent at the World Cup, and that is reason enough to pay close attention - but it’s worth reading the backstory to Kosovo’s remarkable journey to get to this point, to gain even more appreciation for what it’ll mean to them as a nation if they can qualify.

The drama tomorrow is going to be intense. Socceroos fans can just be grateful to be able to watch on as neutrals this time around.

Kick-off in the European games is at 5:45am AEDT tomorrow. We’ll have a live blog for all the World Cup qualifiers on football360.com.au - make sure you check in throughout the day!

I never thought I’d see the day when there was an article featuring A-League club Central Coast Mariners, Queens Park Rangers from the English Championship, and NRL side Wests Tigers.

Owners of latter two are reportedly in negotiations to purchase a piece of the former.

Who’s going to throw their hat in the ring next for a shot at owning a piece of the Mariners - Clive Palmer?!

This could, of course, all be a bit premature.

QPR were supposedly close to buying a stake in, or potentially all of, the Mariners last year only for the deal to evaporate.

The interesting twist this time around is the suggestion that the English club’s interest in the A-League has potentially drawn the attention of other interested parties that could now turn their focus to funding a proposed team in Canberra.

There is already Canberra United in the A-League Women, but there are suggestions the club would need a team in the A-League Men in order to survive.