If you ask Holy Family Primary Year 3 student Harry Zane, Australia will beat Argentina 2-1 this weekend. Matilda Fleming, in Year 5, agrees. Year 6 student Xavi Hassett is tipping a more comprehensive 2-0 victory.
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They are just some of the football-mad kids from the Merewether school who are looking forward to seeing their heroes face some of the world's best on Sunday. Craig Goodwin and Maty Ryan are the first names that come up when you inquire who their favourite players are.
The efforts of the Socceroos in Qatar will inspire more young players - and their parents - to get involved in the grassroots game, Northern NSW Football is predicting.
The Australian national side's round of 16 match on Sunday is only the second time the Socceroos have progressed to the knockout phase of the tournament - the first time since 2006.
It came after Australia won back-to-back matches to finish on equal points with defending champions France in the group stage of the competition.
The number of registered players in northern NSW jumped by 3500 - more than eight per cent - in 2007, the year after the Socceroos' historic campaign in Germany.
Northern NSW head of football development Peter Haynes said he expected a similar boost in interest next season and the governing body was taking the opportunity to drive registrations for 2023.
"These are the times you dream about as a football person," he said.
"You can feel the excitement throughout the football community around the Socceroos.
"Not many people gave them a chance to even qualify let alone make it out of an extremely tough group. I know the football community is proud of them.
"If Australia win, it will be one of the great Australian sporting moments where people ask 'where were you when it happened?'."
Clayton Zane, the former Newcastle Jets coach who played for Australia 14 times between 2000 and 2001, now runs a junior development coaching company in the Hunter.
He told the Newcastle Herald the World Cup was a "real chance" to build the game around Australia, employ more people in its structures and provide more opportunities for those interested to get involved.
"I've got a six-year-old boy who's fallen in love with the Socceroos and he wasn't old enough to watch the last World Cup," he said.
"It's all that knock-on effect from one good tournament."
Those involved with the Hunter's junior clubs know about that flow-on effect.
Adamstown Rosebud Junior Football Club secretary Kerry Conquest said a successful Socceroos campaign would re-light the fire in the bellies of young players.
Maitland Junior Football Club president Ian MacDonald - an Englishman still living in hope that "football is coming home" in 2022 - said the longer the Socceroos stay in the tournament, the more chance there is that new people will want to get involved in the grassroots game.
"What I see, is the kids are wearing the national team shirt, their favourite player's name is on the back of the shirt," he said. "It's blooming great to see."
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