HANGZHOU, China -- The realities of international football are very different to those that are confronted at a club level. Just ask any coach working in the former, who'll regale you with tales of limited contact hours, of injuries and perceived mismanagement of players in the months between windows, a limited pool of talent to draw from, and much more.
And yet simultaneously, and almost contradictorily, one of the more effective paths to success on the international level is having national teams resemble something of a club. And in the wake of back-to-back wins over Indonesia and China in FIFA World Cup qualifying, the Socceroos are increasingly resembling a case in point.
After being jumped on early by Tim Garuda in Sydney last week, Tony Popovic's side delivered on one of the major focuses of their preparations by giving no such opportunity to China at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium on Tuesday, racing out of the blocks and grabbing what proved to be a winning 2-0 lead.
Needing a win to keep their faint, faint hopes of automatic qualification alive, China came out hard in the second-half but for all their possession and speculative attempts -- they outshot the Australians 10 to two in the second stanza -- they would end up forcing keeper Maty Ryan into just a single save; a peak second-half of "Asian Away Days Popa-ball" absorbing another win.
Earlier, the Socceroos took the lead 15 minutes in when Jackson Irvine -- who else, at this point? -- was picked out by a sharp cutback from Lewis Miller and, after his first effort was blocked, deftly guided a left-footed effort into the top corner. At his best when he's able to crash the box and hunt goals, it was his third goal of the March window, perhaps indicative of the work Popovic has done to find patterns and movements to unlock him.
Fortune then smiled on Nishan Velupillay in doubling the advantage just before the half-hour, whipping in a first-time effort on a blocked cross that went straight into the arms of Wang Dalei but then just sort of kept going, slipping his grasp and nestling into the back of the net.
Just as had been the case when he was first called up by Popovic for his first games in charge back in October, Velupillay's recent return to the Socceroos setup had been met with surprise. Though he'd scored in Melbourne Victory's final game before the squad was named, he'd been waylaid by an ankle injury during the three-month gap between windows and struggled to find consistent starts or form.
In a vacuum, there were other players, both in the A-League Men and abroad, that probably had better cases for selection. Nonetheless, entrusted with starting against both Indonesia and China by his former coach at Victory, he responded with goals in each game, making it three from four caps in his young international career.
"It's good for any player when a coach believes in you," Velupillay told ESPN. "Everyone in this group, [Popovic] really believes in, otherwise he wouldn't take any of them. There's a reason everyone is here and as much as the boss backs me, he backs everyone. I've got to keep working hard to get better for our country."
In the Socceroos' midfield, Velupillay's Victory teammate Ryan Teague was given his international debut and put in the kind of performance that, if you didn't know anything of his rise, would have given the impression that he was some kind of grizzled, 50-cap veteran.
Be it through being controlled and clear-headed in possession, purposeful with his off-the-ball work, or blowing up Chinese attempts to transition, the 23-year-old -- the first member of the Joeys side that went to the Under-17 World Cup in 2019 to make their Socceroo debut -- was thrown in the deep end of a critical World Cup qualifier, in front of 70,000 partisan home fans, and responded by arguably being the best player on the park.
"Where the boss has been, from Victory to now, he demands elite levels," Teague told ESPN. "That's something I'm used to. All the boys that come here have the same expectations. It was nice to have the familiarity with that.
"I'm pretty happy that he has the confidence in me to go out on the field in front of 70,000 in a must-win game. But it's not just me, there's 27 boys that he trusts because he's picked them."
Just as was the case with Jason Geria before them, it's impossible to separate Velupillay and Teague's strong start to life in the Socceroos from their time spent under Popovic at club level. Those international sides that successfully resemble club counterparts do so by counting upon a core group of players, executing an established style that's underlined by consistent and well-understood principles. It's not so much about simply picking the best players and figuring out a way to get as many of them on the park at once -- just look at England's long history of not-success -- but picking the players that will buy in and, more importantly, execute the game plan that the coach wants. Right now, that trip is emblematic of Popovic turning to those he trusts and being rewarded for it.
And trust is a big word here.
When combined with the sudden nature of his arrival effectively meaning his sole focus has been righting the ship and getting Australia qualified above all, it helps explain some of Popovic's selections throughout his tenure. It provides grounding towards why veterans such as Anthony Caceres, Luke Brattan, and Alex Grant have all received maiden call-ups, or why the established Mitch Duke was called into the squad as an injury-replacement player for Adam Taggart over in-form youngsters Noah Botić and Nicolas Milanović.
He's not just picking teams to win, but to win the way that he wants them to, with players that he believes can do that, casting his eye far and wide to do so. If Matthew Spiranovic was still going about, you'd be backing him for a call-up at some point.
"I know the basic principles of what he wants and that's what's important in any system," Velupillay said. "That as long as each player knows their role and the principles of the system, you can always flourish."
The challenge for Popovic, invariably, is going to be not allowing continuity to become stagnation, to not allow trust to become favouritism, and to ensure that form isn't ignored. Teague was great, for instance, but Max Balard and Nectarios Triantis are pretty good, too. Further, every message and approach eventually wears thin and every game plan eventually runs out -- we saw that with Graham Arnold -- and the coach will need to ensure he doesn't fall into this trap, albeit being contracted just untill the end of the World Cup probably helps with that.
The national team represents the ultimate aspiration for a player and that can't be allowed to turn into a private club.
But with every win that he brings up, every step he takes towards 2026, the greater his benefit of the doubt. Could it all come down at some point? Absolutely. With Japan and Saudi Arabia waiting in June and the latter game potentially a win-and-you're-in qualifier, things could turn very quickly and pitchforks could emerge even quicker; Popovic arrived in the job with so much baggage and detractors one would expect from more than a decade coaching in the A-League Men.
But he's also made the best start to a head coaching tenure by any Socceroos boss since Terry Venables. And you'd take that.