Jordy Bos and Lucas Herrington Shine in Australia’s Draw with Paraguay

Australia’s goalless draw with Paraguay will not linger long in the memory for its scoreline. For Jordy Bos, it might be a career marker.

As the Socceroos quietly booked their place in the round of 32, the Feyenoord fullback stole the spotlight without finding the net, without even operating on his favoured flank. Shifted to the right, he turned an awkward assignment into a showcase.

“He’s the best player in the world, Jordy Bos,” Nestory Irankunda declared afterwards. The grin said he knew how bold that sounded. The performance made it hard to dismiss.

Bos drove the game from deep. He created more chances than anyone on the pitch, took more shots, completed more dribbles. Every time he combined with Cristian Volpato down the right, Paraguay’s left side sagged a little further under the strain.

He looked like a winger trapped in a defender’s shirt.

Those who have watched Gareth Bale’s evolution from fullback to global superstar would have recognised the pattern. The comparison surfaced around the camp, but Bos’s own footballing compass points elsewhere: to Arjen Robben, the Dutchman whose left foot terrorised defences for a decade.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t score like him, but I tried, tried my hardest,” Bos said. “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 sky felt closer every time he surged forward. Playing on the “wrong” side, he simply ignored the script, stepping inside, overlapping outside, dragging markers out of shape. The only thing missing was the finish his performance deserved.

A new record on the other flank

While Bos tore down one side, another story was quietly unfolding on the left of Australia’s back three.

Lucas Herrington, just 18, walked into World Cup history as the youngest Australian to start a match at the tournament, snatching the record from his own teammate Irankunda. No fanfare, no fuss. Just a composed debut in a game that could easily have overwhelmed him.

His rise has been rapid. European scouts have circled, and the list of admirers already includes Barcelona. That kind of attention can twist a teenager’s priorities. Herrington insists it won’t.

“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,” he said, speaking with the calm of someone a decade older.

Irankunda, who knows the weight of a big move after signing for Bayern Munich at 17, echoed the sentiment and the warning.

“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 [the speculation around his future].”

The message is clear: enjoy the noise, don’t listen to it.

Patience rewarded

Herrington had to wait for this moment. Two games on the bench, two games watching others live the dream he had imagined.

He chose to treat it as a classroom, not a snub.

“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 draw with Paraguay. “I’m just grateful my opportunity came out and I really enjoyed it. I loved it every minute.”

That attitude showed. There were no wild lunges, no rash decisions, just a young defender playing within himself, trusting his positioning and his instincts. On a night when Australia needed control more than chaos, he provided it.

While the headlines will focus on the lack of goals and the permutations of the round of 32, inside the Socceroos camp the conversation is drifting somewhere else entirely.

It is drifting to a right-footed fullback who looked unstoppable on the wrong side, and a teenager on the left who made history look routine.

If this is only a glimpse of what Bos and Herrington can become, how far can this new Australian generation really go?