This weekend marks 50 days until the nation stops as the Socceroos open their FIFA World Cup campaign against Turkiye at BC Place in Vancouver.
Between now and kick-off in that match at 2pm on June 14 (AEST) there’s several important milestones for Tony Popovic and his coaching staff to navigate.
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They’ll make dreams come true, crush others and have those choices scrutinised, all while performances are measured against the bar set by the squad who went to the last World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and came agonisingly close to knocking eventual champions Argentina out in the round of 32. Topping Australia’s best-ever finish at a World Cup will be no small feat.
FIFA WORLD CUP 2026 SCHEDULE WITH AEST START TIMES, DATES
These are the key dates to put in your calendar over the next 50 days.
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WHEN IS THE INITIAL SQUAD NAMED?
The FIFA deadline for the initial squad to be named is May 12 (AEST). Popovic is allowed to select between 35 and 55 players.
That number might seem like a lot (and it is) but given 65 different players have been called into camp by the coach during his tenure so far, there’s actually some decisions that need to be made at this point already.
Three of those 65 are no longer available for selection.
Lewis Miller ruptured his achilles playing for Blackburn in the Championship in February, Portsmouth’s Adrian Segecic changed his international allegiance to Croatia and Nectar Triantis chose to play for Greece instead.
At this stage the plan is for the Socceroos to finalise their long list on May 6th – six days ahead of the deadline – with a training camp to begin the next day. Whether that squad is revealed to the public straight away remains to be seen.
“We need to have as many players available, at the highest level possible, that if injuries do occur that we have a solution and we have someone ready to come in,” Popovic told a gathering of football journalists in Sydney last month.
WHAT ABOUT THE FINAL SQUAD?
The final squad is due to be submitted on June 1 (AEST).
26 players will make the cut, but Popovic can keep up to 35 with him in camp in North America. The extra players will have train-on status and there’s allowances made for any of those squad members to move into the final 26, if circumstances call for it, before the campaign gets underway in Canada.
“We’ll have to decide how many do we want to name there,” Popovic said.
“You can name extra players up until the first game, obviously whether there are injuries where you can change those players and after that first match that’s that.”
June 1 will provide the first big talking point of the tournament from a Socceroos perspective.
Several players can put off end of season holidays in the knowledge they’ll definitely be heading to North America, but around the fringes, there’s a battle between some experienced campaigners and those who will undoubtedly be part of the next World Cup cycle.
Does 18-year-old defender Lucas Herrington, who made an impressive international debut in the FIFA series clash with Cameroon last month and has been in fine form for the Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer, get a spot for example, ahead of another more experienced player who might not feature much at the tournament?
“There’s two sides to it,” Popovic said.
“There’s someone getting an opportunity and also understanding and knowing that you can rely on certain players, even if they’re not at their best physically, that can do the job.”
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HOW ARE THE SOCCEROOS PREPARING FOR THE TOURNAMENT?
On May 7, the day after the initial squad is expected to be named, a training camp gets underway in Sarasota, Florida.
The number of players who are available to attend at this point will grow slowly as they wrap up for the season at their respective clubs.
Football Australia has told Popovic he can bring in as many players as he likes between this point and the final squad being named.
The national team boss wants to be surprised and will head to Florida with an open mind.
“If you finish in early May and you’re on the fringes, well it’s an opportunity for us to see you and train you for two weeks, and as we know in football things change very quickly,” he said.
“That player may go from not having an opportunity to make the World Cup to actually being in the squad.”
The squad will move from Sarasota to Los Angeles on May 28 ahead of their first pre-tournament friendly against Mexico on May 31 (May 30 local).
The day after, the Socceroos move into their base camp further north in Oakland.
That will be the point where players who didn’t make the final squad say goodbye.
The preparation wraps up with another friendly against Switzerland on June 7 (June 6 local) in San Diego.
WHEN WILL PLAYERS BE AVAILABLE TO COME INTO CAMP?
The first players who would potentially be on the long initial list become available after this weekend.
Adam Taggart, Mitch Duke, Brandon Borrello and Nick D’Agostino won’t play in the A-League finals with Perth, Macarthur, Western Sydney and Brisbane respectively.
D’Agostino is also still recovering from a knee injury so his availability is unclear.
The A-League finals run between May 1 and the yet to be scheduled Grand Final on the weekend of the 23rd and 24th of May. Paul Okon-Engstler at Sydney, Nishan Velupillay at Melbourne Victory, and Patrick Beach and Aziz Behich at Melbourne City will leave Australia for Florida if selected, sometime during or straight after this period.
Nestory Irankunda at Watford, Cam Burgess at Swansea City and Harry Souttar at Leicester can’t make the play-offs in the Championship in the UK and Alexander Robertson’s Cardiff City has already secured promotion from League One to the second-tier for next season. Their last games come on the 2nd and 3rd of May.
Mo Toure at Norwich and Callum Elder at Derby County are an outside, but mathematical, chance of making the Championship play-offs.
Riley McGree’s Middlesbrough will get that chance and their push to secure promotion to the Premier League could take up until the play-off final on May 23.
After the 16th and 17th of May players in Scotland (Martin Boyle, Jack Iredale, Ante Suto, Cam Devlin, Nicolas Milanovic and Zac Sapsford), Germany (Jackson Irvine and Connor Metcalfe), Austria (Jacob Italiano and Noah Botic) and the Netherlands (Jordan Bos, Ajdin Hrustic and Max Balard) are free to join camp followed by the final batch across Spain (Mat Ryan and Awer Mabil), Croatia (Fran Karacic), Italy (Alessandro Circati), Poland (Deni Juric), Japan (Kusini Yengi, Jason Geria and Thomas Deng), Cyprus (Milos Degenek) and America (Kye Rowles, Patrick Yazbek, Aiden O’Neill, Lucas Herrington and Kai Trewin) between the 23rd and 25th of May.
It leaves Popovic holding his breath for any last-minute injuries at club land until a week before his final squad is due to be named.
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ARE THE SOCCEROOS PLAYING ANYONE BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT STARTS?
The Socceroos have two pre–World Cup friendly matches locked in.
The first warm up game will be against tournament co-hosts Mexico at the iconic Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on Sunday, May 31 (Saturday, May 30 local).
The venue previously hosted the 1994 Men’s World Cup and 1999 Women’s World Cup finals.
This will be serious business.
Mexico will be using the fixture to prepare for the opening game of the World Cup against South Africa at the Estadio Azteca on June 12 (June 11 local) while it’s the last game for the Socceroos before the final squad has to be submitted to FIFA.
Australia and Mexico have played six times in the past, with the Socceroos winning two and drawing three of those encounters.
After the final squad is named, and just days before their first group stage game against Turkiye, the Socceroos meet Switzerland at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego on June 7 (June 6 local).
“This is our final match before our opening FIFA World Cup fixture against Turkey on June 13 and it will be a great final hit-out for us before the World Cup commences,” Popovic said when the fixture was locked in last week.
“Switzerland is a strong nation, ranked in the top 20, that qualified for the 2026 World Cup after finishing undefeated and topping their group.”
Switzerland is in group B alongside Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Qatar.
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WHERE IS THE SOCCEROOS BASE CAMP FOR THE TOURNAMENT?
Football Australia got the base camp it desired when preferences were submitted to FIFA after the World Cup draw in December last year.
They’ll call the Oakland Roots and Soul Sports Soccer Club home.
The 18,000-square-foot building, former home to the now relocated Oakland Raiders NFL franchise, boasts both indoor and outdoor facilities, including five acres of sports fields.
Even though two of their three group stage games are located further north, in Seattle and Vancouver, Popovic is pleased with the access from Oakland to those cities from the San Francisco Bay Area and the nearby Oakland airport.
“We’re very comfortable with our set up that we’ll have for the World Cup,” Popovic said.
“Everyone’s trying to play their part to make sure that it’s as comfortable as possible, that every detail is covered, on the field, off the field, and we’re very confident that we’ll be in great surroundings and great people that want to make us welcome and help us to prepare as well as we can, to feel at home in Oakland and then to be able to produce when it matters in the World Cup.
“Travel time, we’ve looked at, so we don’t really have to travel more than a couple of hours on a flight to Vancouver and Seattle.”
The final group stage game against Paraguay in Santa Clara is also about an hour away by road.
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WHICH PLAYERS ARE RACING THE CLOCK TO BE FIT FOR THE TOURNAMENT?
Harry Souttar and Kusini Yengi are the two biggest concerns right now on the injury front.
Souttar, on the books of Championship side Leicester City, hasn’t played a competitive game since rupturing his achilles while on loan at Sheffield United in December 2024.
The giant defender, who was among the Socceroos best at the last World Cup in Qatar in 2022, was pushing to return to action in January but suffered a minor knee injury.
Souttar has been on the bench for the Foxes last three fixtures but hasn’t seen any minutes. Leicester, who had its relegation from the Championship confirmed after a 2-2 draw with Hull City on Wednesday morning, has two games remaining. With the pressure of beating the drop now off, these games shape as Souttar’s biggest chance of getting on the pitch.
Regardless, the 27-year-old is likely to be told to report for duty at the Socceroos pre camp in Florida so Popovic can see what shape he’s in.
Yengi, on loan at Cerezo Osaka in Japan from Scottish side Aberdeen, suffered a thigh injury last month and is still recovering.
Before the stunning emergence of Mo Toure at Norwich, Yengi looked like the man most likely to be the Socceroos first choice striker at the World Cup, and if he can get fit in time could still have a role to play.
“It’s something that we’ve had unfortunately since October,” Popovic said of the constant stream of injuries suffered by Australian players in the lead up to the World Cup.
“There have always been players out injured, short term, long term.
“We’ve always approached it as just trying to find a solution and trying to increase the depth and quality of the squad.”
Midfield stalwart Jackson Irvine is managing a foot injury while trying to help FC St. Pauli avoid relegation from the Bundesliga in Germany.
In mid-January it was feared the issue would keep him sidelined for an indefinite period, but a fortnight later Irvine was back in action and the 33-year-old has punched out 90-minutes almost every game since then.
“It will be an ongoing issue, the foot, that he’ll have to manage in the short term and we’ll have to see whether that can be managed all the way through to the World Cup,” Popovic said last month.
“We’d love to have him at the World Cup, but we also know with that injury that it can turn quickly.
“With him it’s basically day by day and week by week.”
Brisbane Roar striker Nick D’Agostino is still out with a knee injury suffered in late February, Middlesbrough attacking midfielder Riley McGree has missed their last two games with a muscle problem and defender Callum Elder has been absent from Derby’s last 10 games with a broken toe.
Winger Craig Goodwin is on the verge of returning for Adelaide United after more than two months out with groin injury. The 34-year-old hopes to use the Reds’ finals campaign to build fitness and state his case for World Cup selection.
WHO IS IN GROUP D WITH THE SOCCEROOS?
The Socceroos open their campaign against Turkiye at BC Place in Vancouver, Canada on Sunday, June 14 at 2pm AEST (Saturday, June 13 at 9pm local time).
A date against co-hosts USA is next at Lumen Field in Seattle on Saturday, June 20 at 5am AEST (Friday, June 19 at 12pm local time).
The final group stage game is against Paraguay at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California on Friday, June 26 at 12pm AEST (Thursday, June 25 at 7pm local time).
“I’ve got a wonderful staff that are looking at details you wouldn’t even imagine in terms of all those little things that you look for,” Popovic said.
“If it happens two or three times, what’s the common trend or what’s the next thing that the team does or the coach does?
“We’re trying to cover everything.”
The tournament features 48 teams; FIFA’s biggest ever World Cup.
The top two teams from each of the 12 groups and the eight best third placed teams go through to the round of 32.