Emerging Stars: Bos and Herrington Shine in Australia’s Draw with Paraguay

Australia’s goalless draw with Paraguay will not live long in the memory for its scoreline. For the emergence — and elevation — of two young defenders, it just might.

As the Socceroos quietly booked their place in the round of 32, the loudest noise inside the camp centred on Jordy Bos.

“Best player in the world, Jordy Bos. Best wing back in the world,” Nestory Irankunda declared, half-laughing, fully serious, after the 0-0 stalemate. It sounded like hyperbole. It didn’t feel like it to those who had just watched Bos torment Paraguay from an unfamiliar flank.

Bos owns the right

A natural left-sided fullback, the Feyenoord defender was shifted to the right of Australia’s back line. It should have been a compromise. Instead, it became a platform.

Bos created more chances than anyone on the pitch, took the most shots and completed the most dribbles, repeatedly driving high up the right and dovetailing with Cristian Volpato. Every time he received the ball, there was a sense that something might crack.

He did the dirty work of a defender. He played like a winger. At times, he looked like both in the same movement.

Teammates likened his display to the early days of Gareth Bale — the marauding fullback who grew into a Real Madrid superstar. Bos’s own football education came from a different wing.

He grew up on Arjen Robben.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t score like him, but I tried, tried my hardest,” Bos said afterwards, still replaying the near-misses in his mind. “I think I could have scored a couple, but I think from now on if everyone puts their best foot forward and we get chances, we just have to finish it.

“The sky’s the limit.”

The numbers backed his confidence. The eye test did too. In a tight, tense World Cup group game, Bos played as if the lines on the pitch were suggestions rather than boundaries, stepping inside, overlapping outside, forcing Paraguay backwards.

He did it all from the “wrong” side.

A new record on the left

While Bos stole the spotlight on the right, the left side of Australia’s back three quietly made history.

Lucas Herrington, just 18, became the youngest Australian ever to start a World Cup match, nudging Irankunda’s own record aside. There was no fanfare from him, no outward sign that he is being courted by some of Europe’s heaviest hitters, including Barcelona.

He has heard the noise. He is refusing to listen to it.

“I’m here at the World Cup, so that’s my main focus. I just want to help the team as much as possible, and we can deal with that after,” Herrington said, sounding older than his years.

It is a stance Irankunda understands better than most. Signed by Bayern Munich at 17, he has lived the whirlwind the teenager is now stepping into.

“He’s so talented and I feel like this is just a glimpse of what he can do, a small glimpse of what he can do, and I feel like he can just get better from here and I feel like we’ll see a better side to him,” Irankunda said.

“I’ve just told him to try to stay away from it,” he added of the speculation swirling around Herrington’s future.

On the pitch, Herrington looked like a player who had been studying rather than sulking. Left out of the starting XI for Australia’s opening two games, he spent his time watching, learning, waiting.

“It’s my first World Cup at 18. It’s in probably everyone’s best interest for a young player just to watch and observe the first couple of games,” he said after the Paraguay match. “I’m just grateful my opportunity came out and I really enjoyed it. I loved it every minute.”

No grand gestures. No dramatics. Just solid, composed defending on one of football’s biggest stages, from a teenager who knows the spotlight is coming and is determined it won’t blind him.

A different kind of statement

Australia did not find a goal. They did find something else.

In Bos, a fullback who can bend a game from either side of the pitch, carrying the swagger of a winger and the engine of a defender. In Herrington, a left-sided stopper who treats a World Cup debut like a classroom, not a catwalk.

The Socceroos have had famous forwards, heroic goalkeepers, cult midfielders. This new chapter may well be written from the back.

If this is only a glimpse, as Irankunda insists, what happens when Bos starts finishing like Robben and Herrington stops playing like a kid on debut and starts playing like he owns the place?