3 min readJun 13, 2026 09:15 PM IST
First published on: Jun 13, 2026 at 09:15 PM IST
Australia and Turkey start their FIFA World Cup campaign in Vancouver on Sunday morning (India time), but the battle of words began a long time before that.
Turkish captain Hakan Calhanoglu didn’t mince words when he predicted that his team would dominate the Socceroos because they have “more qualities and a more talented team.”
If it was a ploy to rile up the opposition before a big game, it certainly got the Aussies’ attention. However, they didn’t respond to the jibe in kind, with coach Tony Popovic only saying that his team was ready to “spoil the party.”
Not just the skipper, defender Ozan Kabak also said “I think that we can beat them.”
Calhanoglu was pretty forthcoming in his assessment.
“Our coach analysed them with us together. So, we know that they’re a physical team, that they’re good on the corner kicks and the free kicks because they are tall and strong,” the Inter Milan midfielder said.
“I think that we dominate tomorrow the game because we have more qualities and (are a) more talented team, so we will see tomorrow what happens.”
Turkey are at a World Cup for the first time in 24 years but have some exciting talent in their ranks – notably Real Madrid’s Arda Guler and Juventus’s Kenan Yildiz, both 21 years old.
Popovic believed that not just Turkey but the other two teams in the group – the United States and Paraguay – would consider themselves better than Australia, and it was up to his players to prove them wrong.
“I respect his comment, and he has a right to be asked a question, and he has a right to answer it any way he likes,” he said. “They expect to win, but so do most people; they expect they will beat Australia tomorrow, so that’s no different. All we can do is try and spoil the party; that’s our challenge tomorrow, and that’s what we have to do.”
The Australia coach expects a hard game at the BC Place.
“We know they are strong; we’ve analysed them, but we also have to think of ourselves and think about how we can cause them problems and show Australian football at the World Cup,” Popovic said.
“That’s our aim tomorrow, to be extremely competitive, to show that we are a strong nation, and that we deserve to be respected. We understand that not many people are expecting much from us outside of our own people, our own media, our own team, our own staff, but we’re accustomed to that.”
Turkey football team captain Hakan Calhanoglu in action. (AP) 
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