Jordy Bos Transforms Right-Back Role for Australia in World Cup Draw
Jordan Bos did not so much play right-back as rip the position up and redraw it along the San Francisco Bay.
Again and again the natural left-back charged down that unfamiliar flank, skipping one challenge, riding the next, exploding into the box. Each surge felt like a rising tide. Each run dragged Australia a few metres closer to the World Cup last 32 and a few metres further away from danger.
For long stretches of this 0-0 draw with Paraguay, the Socceroos walked a tightrope. The equation was simple: avoid defeat and Group D’s second place was theirs. The experience was anything but. Every time Julio Enciso slipped into space or Patrick Beach had to fling himself into another save, 12,000 Australians in yellow held their breath and stared at the clock.
So did Tony Popovic. The coach kept glancing up at the digits, watching the seconds drip away, knowing one mistake could turn a controlled campaign into a cautionary tale. Australia did not need a goal. They needed a performance that made sense of this World Cup again after the flatness of the loss to the United States.
They found it in Bos.
Just a short drive from Google’s Mountain View headquarters, the Socceroos’ search engine was a 23-year-old from Melbourne, tearing down the right touchline and resetting the algorithm of this team’s belief. Every carry upfield was a release valve. Every duel won bought another pocket of calm.
His first-half partner in mischief, Cristian Volpato, disappeared to the bench in the second period. So did Nestory Irankunda, the match-winner against Turkey and the nominal spearhead of this side. The pattern did not change. Bos kept coming, colliding with bodies, punching holes in Paraguay’s shape, treating the right wing as his own strip of real estate.
Ajdin Hrustic, introduced on that same flank, had the best view in the stadium. “He’s a great player, he’s got power, you’ve seen it,” the substitute winger said, almost shrugging at the obvious. Aiden O’Neill stood nearby clutching the player of the match trophy and looking faintly embarrassed, admitting the award probably belonged to the man behind him.
Inside the dressing room there was no such hesitation. Captain Harry Souttar called Bos “a special player, a special guy, and just takes everything in his stride”. Then he let slip the kind of line teammates usually keep for private conversations. “The guy’s body’s just unbelievable to look at,” Souttar said, before catching himself. He did not want to weigh Bos down with expectation, but he could not help it. “If he keeps performing like that then there’s no ceiling.”
The praise kept escalating. Milos Degenek pushed the hype into headline territory, labelling Bos already a top-five left-back in the world and the best at his age. “That’s my opinion, I’m very biased, and I love him,” he admitted. Asked, with a grin, where that left Bos among right-backs, Degenek fired back: “Top 10,” and laughed.
Irankunda went higher still. “He’s the best player in the world, Jordy Bos, best winger in the world,” he said, only half-joking. In his eyes, this was not a full-back at all. “He might have to switch to a winger, in my opinion. He’s done so well at right-back today, but he got so high up the pitch today and he showed glimpses of what he can do with the ball.”
The twist is that Bos was never meant to own this role. His name at right-back on Popovic’s teamsheet raised eyebrows, not because Australia lacked options there – Kai Trewin and Jason Geria are both specialist right-sided defenders – but because it seemed an unnecessary gamble in a match of such fine margins.
Popovic had seen enough to trust it. Bos played on the right during his time in Belgium with Westerlo, and the coach had already tested the idea with a half-hour cameo in that position against New Zealand nine months ago. “We’ve seen that he can adapt and play on that side,” Popovic said. “It’s the best game he’s played of the three [World Cup matches] by far.”
Bos arrived at this tournament with a solid European résumé, having proven himself in the Dutch Eredivisie last season. He also arrived as a symbol of this young, unscarred Socceroos group – talented, ambitious, still working out exactly how good it can be.
Until Thursday, his World Cup had been tidy rather than transformative. Competent, not commanding. Then came this eruption, out of position, under the shadow of a suspension. One more yellow card and he would miss the last 32. He played on the edge without tipping over it.
His training-ground nickname this week captured the mood. Hrustic had started calling him “Dani Alves”, a nod to the Brazilian who turned right-back into an attacking art form. Others had reached for Arjen Robben, the left-footed right winger who spent a decade cutting in and torturing full-backs. Bos smiled those comparisons away. “Unfortunately I didn’t score like him, but I tried,” he said.
The numbers underlined the eye test. No Australian took more shots than Bos’s three. No one created more chances; he sat joint-top there as well. He completed four dribbles, more than anyone else, and won the most duels on the pitch, including seven of nine in the air. “I was enjoying it too, honestly, tonight,” he admitted, as if the joy had not been obvious.
The name that circles back most often, though, is Gareth Bale. Another left-back who broke free of the touchline, who turned raw athleticism and power into something far more dangerous further up the field. Bale became a right winger at Tottenham and Real Madrid. Bos, on this evidence, can follow a similar arc if he chooses.
Asked who he sees in himself from this roll call of greats, Bos paused. “Yeah, Robben … I don’t mind Bale, to be honest,” he said. Alves, Robben, Bale – take your pick. The comparisons will keep coming now.
The important part is simpler. On a cool night by the Bay, in a match where Australia did not need a goal but desperately needed a statement, Jordy Bos stopped being a promising name on a teamsheet and started being a problem for the rest of this World Cup.
