CommBank Socceroos captain Maty Ryan highlighted the belief in the squad ahead of friendlies against Venezuela and Colombia in the November international window.
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He said that it was always a privilege to be in camp, and the team was looking forward to the challenge, and everything that they could learn ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026™.
He was speaking to the CommBank Socceroos media team in Houston, Texas, where the squad has gathered ahead of the two friendlies.
Being back in the CommBank Socceroos squad
It's always a great feeling. Any opportunity that an individual gets to be in here and represent the country, and be in this environment, is a great privilege and honour. It’s a great opportunity to go out and do what we can to contribute to the success of the team.
Reflecting on games against USA and Canada
Like all games and all camps, there are things we can obviously take from them - to make us better, to improve on. There are always those things, no matter what the result of the game is. But we have a strong belief that our style of football can deliver wins, and that's what we want. So it was disappointing that we weren't able to obtain a better result in the USA game, especially after going ahead.
Every individual, every player, needs to look at whether they can do better in certain moments. I know the coaching staff have plenty of feedback there for us in order to improve and be better.
The aim of this window
These two games here will prove to be good challenges for us, facing another type of opponent that we don't get to face too much - only in these types of competitions. It’s another good challenge for us as a squad.
The vibe within the squad
There's a mix of some boys returning from injuries, and some boys from periods out who have been playing regularly for their clubs, and now they're getting another opportunity. It just highlights Tony [Popovic’s] approach in that if you're out there and playing - and playing well and playing regularly - you give yourself a real good chance of being in here and getting an opportunity to showcase why you should be in here.
No matter what the occasion is, or the moment is, when you're representing the national team, having the opportunity to pull on that shirt is monumental enough that I'm sure all players are out there giving everything they've got in their lives and their football careers to be in here. I'm sure we're all going to be using that as motivation in preparing for these two games.
Club football at Levante
I'm really, really loving the fact that I’m playing at the highest level again and playing regularly. It's a league that I had a little bit of experience in, but due to circumstances, I hadn't really locked down a regular playing role in my two previous clubs, so I was really looking forward to that challenge. Just being back playing against some of the biggest teams and the biggest players and taking them on, and having little moments of success against them. I know, collectively, we haven't had as many results as we would have liked until now. But taking the little personal wins, and making saves and trying to keep your team in the game, and trying to make saves or influence the game for more positive results is always a nice feeling.
I'm certainly trying to share my experiences with the guys and my opinion to make us stronger. The coaching staff are doing the same, and other boys who have experience. Even myself and older guys can learn from younger guys - you can learn something every day and learn from everyone. So we've been very competitive in the league without probably having the points tally that we want, until now. But there are a lot of positive signs, and there's a lot of football to be played. I'm confident in what I've seen from us as a team, that we can go there and achieve our goals this season of staying in the league.