The Socceroos will look to emulate the efforts of their golden generation when they take on England’s finest in London on Saturday morning.
Key points:
- The Socceroos beat a star-studded English team 3-1 in a friendly in London in 2003.
- The teams face off again on Saturday morning AEDT
- Jackson Irvine has called England and Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham the best in the world
Twenty years ago, a Socceroos team led by Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka caused an upset at Upton Park that was seen as one of those casual humiliations to be buried in the hall of shame, at the end of the corridor that followed England’s unthinkable defeat to the United States in the 2017 1950 World Cup.
The Socceroos last faced England in 2016, losing 2-1 at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland.
But that 2003 elimination of a team that included David Beckham, Michael Owen, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole and debutant Wayne Rooney provides a delightful backdrop to the Socceroos’ first visit to Wembley.
And what ammunition does this give to Graham Arnold, the coach who was assistant to boss Frank Farina on that famous evening in February 2003 and who now has the opportunity to repeat the dose, but on an even bigger stage big.
“One hundred percent,” Arnold replied when asked if he would exploit the Anglo-Australian rivalry and the 2003 narratives.
“I spoke a bit about it with the English media earlier this week and they are still talking about Upton Park in 2003 – and that’s the type of rivalry you need.”
Fueled by outrage, Farina’s boys learned before the match that then-coach Sven Goran-Eriksson had announced he would completely change teams at halftime.
“‘Who the hell does he think he is? Does he think we’re shit?’ We developed the narrative as coaches: ‘Look, they have no respect for us,'” Arnold told the Times this week.
“The Australian mentality has come through.”
And England found itself in disarray.
“We went up the tunnel and all you could hear was Beckham speaking to Sven, ‘We’re not going out. We can’t be 2-0 up at half-time and going out.’ Sven still changed the whole team,” Arnold said.

For a bunch of football-mad kids at home, waking up to go to school and learning the result – England 1, Australia 3 – lit a fuse.
Jackson Irvine, then 10 years old, remembers it like it was yesterday.
“It was a big moment in this team’s preparation for the 2006 World Cup,” Irvine said on Wednesday.
“A great stepping stone on this path and a memorable and memorable result in Australian football history.
“That’s what you dream of as a kid, playing on a big stage and creating those kinds of memories.”
While the current Three Lions line-up may not quite have the name recognition of Beckham-Gerrard-Lampard-Scholes pomp, Irvine once again declared Australia would take on the world’s best when the match would kick off at 5:45am AEDT. SATURDAY.
That star power is headlined by Jude Bellingham, the shooting star in Real Madrid’s midfield who left Irvine’s brain scrambled when he first played against him in a league match English for Hull when the youngster from Birmingham was not yet 16.

“I said to myself, ‘This doesn’t make sense.’ Your brain doesn’t calculate that a player can play like that, at that age,” said Irvine, who also played for his current club, St Pauli, against Bellingham when the then teenager was at Dortmund.
“His growth and his development, the whole world has watched and he seems to have taken charge of everything. And that’s also testament to his kind of character and he’s doing it now on the biggest stage at the biggest club in the world.
“There is probably no more talented player in the world. There is nothing more to say about him. Everyone can see the result of what he has, what he brought and how how he performs, and he is arguably the best player in the world at the moment.”
The Socceroos last faced England in 2016, losing 2-1 at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland.
ABC Sport will broadcast the England friendly match live on its blog from 5.30am AEDT on Saturday.
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