DOHA: The Socceroos might have already accomplished an enormous task – but striker Mitchell Duke had a simple message.
“Don’t write us off.”
Duke’s goal sparked Australia to a win over Tunisia, before he again put in a stellar shift up front in the win over Denmark.
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“It doesn’t really feel like it’s sunk in quite yet – that’s what some of the boys said when we walked in; ‘do we realise what we’ve just done?
“A lot of people would have wrote us off, and the belief and the family that we’ve created in our team is just second to none.”
Like the majority of the squad, Duke came through the A-League, and was asked if he thought this accomplishment would boost the game back home.
“I don’t think how we couldn’t, really, after what we’ve just achieved.”
Duke said that coach Graham Arnold told players to enjoy the game briefly, but that it would have to be a sharp turnaround for their knockout game against Argentina this weekend.
But once you’re into the knockout stage, you have to start to dream. Can they win the World Cup?
“We’ve just got to go game by game and not get too far ahead of ourselves, but the belief in our group is massive,” he said.
“Bring on whoever, I feel like we could take on anyone right now - and that’s the belief we have in the group, and if we go out with that mentality that we had tonight, I think we can go up against anyone and get a result.”
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