Paul Wade’s noticed something crucial has returned to the Socceroos that could set the benchmark for future games. 

Australia was knocked out of the World Cup early Sunday morning after falling 2-1 to Argentina.

But despite the heartbreaking loss, it’s widely agreed that the Socceroos did Australia proud.

Gary Clare: “The second goal was just awful. A lot of teams would’ve hung their heads and said, ‘Well, we’re done’, but these guys didn’t.”

Paul Wade: “No, and that’s the thing that they’ve reinstated in Australian football, I think, I hope.

“For years, we’ve had this Dutch system where all of a sudden, we had to be the most skilful team in the world and we weren’t.

“But in that game, in fact, in the four games before that, crucial games we had to win, now I’m seeing the mongrel back.

“If we can keep that mongrel they showed with a little bit of skill, maybe keeping that ball under pressure, well I’ll tell you what, look out world, here we come!”

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