DOHA (Reuters) – Aaron Mooy is hoping Australia’s strong Scottish connection might bring a few more supporters on board as the Socceroos plot a tricky path out of Group D at the World Cup.
While Scotland failed to qualify for Qatar, the Australian squad features three Scottish-born players and Mooy is one of seven who play club football in the country’s Premier League — leading some to dub the team the “Jockeroos”.
“I didn’t know about that name,” the Celtic midfielder laughed at Australia’s training camp in Doha on Wednesday.
“There’s lots of ‘high Scottish’ players here. Scotland’s not here, so hopefully (Scottish fans) can get behind us.”
Jason Cummings, who won two caps for the Scots, his fellow forward Martin Boyle and defender Harry Souttar were all born in Scotland, while Mooy, Keanu Baccus, Nathaniel Atkinson, Aziz Behich, Kye Rowles and Cam Devlin play for Scottish clubs.
“In Scotland there’s lots of Aussies at the moment,” Mooy added. “It’s a good league and a competitive league.
“They’re doing well and they bring lots of energy into the group – lots of hunger. They want to prove themselves and this is important in football, for sure.”
Australia, playing at a fifth consecutive World Cup finals, will need all the backing they can get if they are going to progress from an opening-round group also including France, Denmark and Tunisia.
They open their campaign against the French, as they did in 2018 when they took a lot of credit out of a hard-fought 2-1 loss to the eventual champions.
Mooy, who will be expected to start in midfield as he did four years ago in Kazan, said Australia were determined to get something out of Tuesday’s match at the Al Janoub stadium.
“We want to go out and have a positive performance,” Mooy added.
“It’s a World Cup, we want to maybe surprise a few people. That’s the goal. We want to play well and get points.”
(Reporting by Kurt Hall, writing by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Ed Osmond)
