The Socceroos have sealed qualification for a sixth-straight World Cup with a flourish, defeating long-time adversaries Japan and Saudi Arabia in its final window to ensure the usual stress of play-offs and penalties could be avoided.

For the length of the qualifying campaign, those two closing matches loomed in the distance as a brutal final hurdle for the side to overcome. Ultimately they proved fruitful; their sixteen-year winless run against Japan ended in Perth before they took all three points in Jeddah, where they’d needed only to avoid a heavy loss.

Tony Popovic joins Ange Postecoglou and Graham Arnold as the only Australian managers to qualify the side for the World Cup, and even they were unable to do so without the rigmarole of play-offs; making the feat yet more impressive was that Popovic picked up the side ahead of its third game of ten with just a solitary point on the board, after an uninspired start that cost Arnold his job.

‘The campaign was very good, given the situation we were in after the first two games. Looking at the stats after that, in the two decades since we joined Asia only one team had failed to win one of their opening two games, before going on to qualify automatically – which ironically enough was Australia, in 2014’, The Asian Game’s Paul Williams told Box2Box.

‘It wasn’t looking good but since Popa has come in, you can’t debate the results. Eight games undefeated and four wins in a row is flawless from that point of view. But there were some sliding doors moments that could have made things more hairy, and not all performances were great.

‘Things could have been different, but a little bit of luck went our way. I don’t know if Aziz Behich will ever hit a right foot shot that well again in his life (as he did for the winner against Japan), but he probably doesn’t need to, because he’s got the moment that essentially qualified Australia.’

Behich’s winner – to break the deadlock in the 90th minute, most of which the Socceroos had spent on the back foot – will crystallise as the moment of this campaign in Australian football’s consciousness, his moment taking its place alongside those of Aloisi & Schwarzer, Josh Kennedy, and Andrew Redmayne.

But Williams is right to point out there were multiple other junctures on which things hinged. History might look kindly on Popovic’s second window in charge: a 0-0 draw to Saudi at home, and a 2-2 draw away to Bahrain, look like reasonable results at first glance. But at the time they required a huge dose of luck, and represented a massive relief.

‘The November window was a massive sliding doors moment. Think back to the Saudi game in Melbourne, where they scored in the 92nd minute. VAR ruled it out for a marginal offside call, interference on Joe Gauci. I don’t think he was in any way impeded, but that is the rule, and Australia got out of jail.

‘We then went to Bahrain and were 2-1 down deep into stoppage time. In the 96th minute Kusini Yengi scored to equalise at 2-2, so we walked away from that window with two precious points that kept us, somehow, in second position.’

Saudi Arabia remain alive in their pursuit of what would also be a seventh World Cup appearance, but are now subjected to October’s play-offs: six teams split into two groups for two games each, with the top placed finishers to progress.

Like Australia they also changed manager mid-campaign, with Hervé Renard returning to the post he departed shortly after leading the side at the 2022 World Cup, replacing the high-profile Roberto Mancini.

‘They have the expectation that they should be qualifying automatically, but they were a shadow of the Saudi that we’ve come to know. Mancini never seemed the right fit, and then when Renard came back in they picked up a point in their first game against Australia, but then lost against Indonesia’, said Williams.

‘They went six games scoring just one goal, and you won’t qualify with performances like that. There’s some things to figure out for Saudi football. It’s a side still with the likes of Salem Al-Dawsari, but even he missed three penalties.

‘It was a campaign of missed opportunities, and little moments that turned the group on its head in all different directions.’