‘Print it out … spell my name correctly’: US pundit taunts ‘average’ Socceroos

“I hope that they print it out. Make sure you spell my name correctly,” Lalas said.

“I hope that it’s wallpaper all around the Australian dressing room, because they’re going to need all the help they can get.”

Lalas is one of several American soccer pundits who could not hide his glee when the Socceroos landed in group D alongside the USA for the World Cup. As the lowest-ranked team in pot two – which also featured the likes of Croatia, Morocco, Colombia and Japan – Australia was statistically the best possible opponent for the co-hosts.

The celebrations began almost instantly ahead of their showdown on June 20 (AEST) in Seattle.

Mike Grella, an American ex-player turned analyst for CBS Sports, described the Socceroos as a “lay-up”, as if a basketball term was the optimal way to assert his country’s supremacy in soccer.

That was in December. Just last month he struggled to defend his position during an on-air grilling from Mark Schwarzer, and then said if the USA couldn’t beat Australia, they shouldn’t be at the World Cup.

On Fox Sports, Lalas looked up to the heavens with gratitude on the night of the draw: “If you believe in the soccer gods, you should be thanking them. This is not just a good group, this is a great group. This is a group you should expect this United States team to win.”

This week, Lalas went hard and direct at the Socceroos, who he has rated 36th out of the 48 teams at the World Cup in his personal power rankings.

“They’re going to struggle to score goals, to maintain possession ... against better quality competition and the elites of the world, they can’t play the way they play in their region,” Lalas said on the State of the Union podcast.

“This is an average team by any measure, and certainly not a great team.”

Best known as the long-haired, ginger-bearded centre-back for the USA during their last World Cup at home in 1994, Lalas the pundit has become one of the defining personalities of American soccer, famously unafraid to say what he thinks, whenever he wants. He is a proud MAGA advocate and engages in rolling social media battles with just about anyone willing to take him on.

“Because the one thing that I’ve learned from travelling to Australia is, while you are a mighty and proud nation, you’re also a realistic nation, and a nation of truth. There is total truth in what I said.

“If you put it up certainly against groups that we have had in the past, this is, like I said, not just an easier group – and I know you use that, and that’s a triggering type of word – but I think it’s a winnable group for a number of dif