{"id":74517,"date":"2026-06-06T01:58:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/06\/sick-of-it-socceroo-connor-metcalfe-fires-back-at-us-barbs-in-world-cup-buildup\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T01:58:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:58:30","slug":"sick-of-it-socceroo-connor-metcalfe-fires-back-at-us-barbs-in-world-cup-buildup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/06\/sick-of-it-socceroo-connor-metcalfe-fires-back-at-us-barbs-in-world-cup-buildup\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sick of it\u2019: Socceroo Connor Metcalfe fires back at US barbs in World Cup buildup"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Australia midfielder takes aim at \u2018rubbish\u2019 from United States pundits<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Former US defender Alexi Lalas called Socceroos an \u2018average team\u2019<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Socceroos midfielder Connor Metcalfe has heard every barb coming Australia\u2019s way from the United States \u2013 and he\u2019s had a gutful of it. Since Australia were drawn in Group D along with the co-hosts in December, the Socceroos have proved the punching bag for pundits based in the USA.<\/p>\n<p>Former striker Landon Donovan labelled Socceroos coach Tony Popovic as \u201csmug\u201d and tipped the Australians to finish fourth behind the US, Turkey and Paraguay and exit in the group stage. \u201cThanks for coming, Aussies and your smug coach \u2013 you can get back on the Qantas airplane and head back home, pal,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/jun\/06\/world-cup-australia-socceroos-connor-metcalfe-united-states-barbs\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australia midfielder takes aim at \u2018rubbish\u2019 from United States pundits Former US defender Alexi Lalas called Socceroos an \u2018average team\u2019 Socceroos midfielder Connor Metcalfe has heard every barb coming Australia\u2019s way from the United States \u2013 and he\u2019s had a gutful of it. Since Australia were drawn in Group D along with the co-hosts in &#8230; <a title=\"\u2018Sick of it\u2019: Socceroo Connor Metcalfe fires back at US barbs in World Cup buildup\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/06\/sick-of-it-socceroo-connor-metcalfe-fires-back-at-us-barbs-in-world-cup-buildup\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about \u2018Sick of it\u2019: Socceroo Connor Metcalfe fires back at US barbs in World Cup buildup\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}