Socceroos out to 'spoil' home World Cup of Group D combatants USA

[p]"[b]It's our role to spoil one part of it[/b]," Socceroos midfielder Aiden O'Neill, who plays for Major League Soccer club New York City FC, told AFP on Saturday.[/p][p]"Obviously, I think it's amazing that the World Cup is in the US, it's growing. I can see that first hand, and I'm involved in that.[/p][p]"[b]I think it's really exciting... We'll come first and they can come second![/b]"[/p][p]The group also contains Turkey and Paraguay, and is arguably the tournament's most evenly matched.[/p][p]The United States are favorites to progress, while Australia -- traditionally stronger at several other sports, despite consistently qualifying for the World Cup -- have mostly flown under the radar.[/p][p]O'Neill said the signature steeliness that runs throughout Australian sports could give his side the edge in reaching the knockout rounds against talented opposition.[/p][p]"[b]I think you can see we will give absolutely everything to get that result, and I think that could be the difference,[/b]" he said.[/p][p]"[b]There's this fight and grit. It's something that we have great pride in, having that grit and that determination[/b]."[/p][embed guid="e0adc5e6-0b21-4177-a0c6-005891ec1533" url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A5piB0QgwE" social-type="youtube" /][p]His team exhibited plenty of defensive solidity and sacrifice in their narrow 1-0 loss to Mexico on Saturday. Despite conceding an early goal, Australia had the best of the chances.[/p][p]The game took place 150 miles from the Mexico border at the Rose Bowl outside Los Angeles, where the vast majority of the near-80,000 crowd supported El Tri.[/p][p]"[b]We're obviously going to face that type of atmosphere in the second game against the States, home-crowd advantage,[/b]" said defender Harry Souttar, whose side play the United States in Seattle on June 19.[/p][p]"[b]I love it. I'll be excited by it,[/b]" said goalkeeper Mathew Ryan.[/p][p]"[b]Perhaps it's very easy for people to think that you go out there feeling nervous in all that, but I think you've got to try and flip that and turn it into excitement,[/b]" Australia's captain told AFP.[/p][embed guid="36cdf6b6-b92c-432d-887a-d4cf7ee63664" url="https://x.com/Socceroos/status/2060958706263838915" social-type="twitter" /][p]The experienced keeper, who had a successful stint at Brighton and Hove Albion as well as a brief loan at Arsenal, said at this stage in his career a hostile home crowd was just "[b]white noise".[/b][/p][p]The pro-Mexico crowd in California on Saturday was enraged by an apparent second goal for their team being disallowed after the referee ruled a free kick had been taken too quickly.[/p][p]But Australia had the better of the second half, and coach Tony Popovic said his side's performance after the break "[b]will give us a lot of confidence that we can play a very good nation, fantastic team, well coached, big crowd.[/b]"[/p][p]Could that backs-to-the-wall experience give Australia the edge in Seattle against the hosts?[/p][p]"[b]I'm not sure if they'll be as loud as these guys, but we'll wait and see,[/b]" said O'Neill.[/p][embed guid="980c71ea-7b56-413f-b51f-c6311bf7e324" url="https://x.com/ParamountPlusAU/status/2060940283572072626" social-type="twitter" /]