Matching the green-and-golden generation of 2006 is a stunning achievement for this Australia team

Of course the stunning underdog story at Qatar 2022 has ended up being Australia. Of course it is.

Remember when it was Saudi Arabia who were the lovable underdogs? Great days.

This, though, is a stunning achievement for an Australian team that, with all due respect, should have got absolutely nowhere near the last 16. Australia’s men have only ever achieved that once before, and the 2006 squad that had its hearts broken deep into stoppage time by eventual champions Italy was an entirely different beast. That was the team of Kewell and Viduka, of Cahill and Schwarzer. But it had top-level depth, too. Nine members of that squad were Premier League players, three more were in Serie A, Jason Culina was at PSV and Scott Chipperfield at Basel.

This 2022 squad that has just at least matched their achievement barely made it through qualifying, has no Premier League players, eight A-Leaguers and six players from the Scottish league. It is on that basis therefore perhaps the most Scottish team ever to make it past the first round of a World Cup.

This isn’t criticism of these players, it’s the opposite. The bald fact is there just aren’t players in this squad of the calibre of those former greats, and the depth of talent and just as importantly elite experience a level below isn’t there either. So what they’ve just achieved is incredible. A truly extraordinary achievement for a team from a great sporting country with more football heritage than is generally acknowledged but with a current squad that appeared to have no realistic chance of escaping a group containing world champions France and dark horses Denmark.

Australia did enough in the opening 20 minutes against France in the first game to earn respect, and finding themselves ultimately steamrollered by Kylian Mbappe was no disgrace. But their opening goal in that game still felt entirely like a nice moment to take home with them and nothing more. There was little sign that this was a team about to win two World Cup games in five days, matching the total from their entire previous history at the tournament.

And yet they’ve done it with hard-earned and deserved 1-0 wins over Tunisia and Denmark, who were both wildly disappointing. Tunisia at least managed to end their tournament on a high with victory over already-qualified and half-interested France, but it’s right and proper that it wasn’t enough to send them through. It would have been a great story in its own right but would have owed…