Relax, the keeper swap was normal. The rest of Popovic's shootout wasn't
Australia crashed out to Egypt on penalties. The keeper substitution made sense — sending two defenders up including the youngest player we've ever fielded didn't.
Harry Souttar started the long walk from halfway, and you already knew.
Six-foot-six, the tallest outfield player ever to wear the green and gold, the armband only just taken off him and handed to the goalkeeper — and here he was, first up in the biggest shootout in Socceroos history, arguably second only to the 2005 night against Uruguay that ended 32 years of hurt.
He blazed it over the bar.
The question was never why he missed.
It was why he was walking up first at all.
Australia went out of the World Cup in the early hours of Saturday morning, beaten 4-2 on penalties by Egypt after a 1-1 draw in Texas — 4am back home on the east coast.
It was the nation's first World Cup shootout, and it ended the way the whole night had been threatening to.
Egypt were the better side.
Emam Ashour headed them in front inside 13 minutes, rising unmarked at the back post while the Australian defence switched off.
Australia's leveller came 10 minutes after the break, an Aiden O'Neill free-kick turned into his own net by Mohamed Hany.
That was the sum of it — one goal off a defensive lapse, one gifted by an opponent, and, Volpato's early effort aside, next to nothing that troubled Egypt across 120 minutes.
This was not a night Australia deserved to win.
Not that the tournament was a loss.
Patrick Beach was a revelation in goal and won't be at Melbourne City much longer.
Herrington is already the subject of a reported Barcelona bid, and Jordy Bos, currently at Feyenoord, did more than enough here to have bigger clubs circling.
Then came the penalties, and two decisions worth pulling apart.
The first was fine.
Popovic sent on Mat Ryan for Beach at 119 minutes, purely for the shootout — the older keeper, the safer hands.
Bringing a specialist on because he gives you a better chance at penalties is standard, done at every level of the game.
It didn't come off — Ryan got near none of Egypt's four — but the thinking was sound, and you don't hang a manager for a fair call the coin flip punished.
The second is harder to forgive.
Somehow in that order, Souttar — the defensive giant who'd just handed away the captain's armband he'd worn all tournament — was sent up first.
Then, further down, we sent up our other centre-back: Lucas Herrington, 18 years old, the youngest player we've ever fielded at a World Cup, and no penalty taker either.
He hit the bar.
Nobody's blaming an 18-year-old for putting his hand up, or Souttar for doing the same.
That's what you want from players.
But who shoots, and in what order, is the staff's call to make — or should be.
And a plan that sent the just-demoted captain up first and a teenage defender into the five never really looked like a plan at all.
It looked improvised — which, walking into a knockout, it had no business being.
You settle your five before kickoff, on who can take a penalty, not on who's brave enough to volunteer once the whistle's gone.
That Herrington is a generational talent doesn't change it.
A run through the tournament was defensible, exciting even.
One of five career-defining kicks, stone cold, was something else — and that was on the coach, the same one who signed a fresh deal through to the 2027 Asian Cup on the eve of the tournament.
Whatever Saturday was, it wasn't going to cost him anything.
For the record, Egypt didn't miss.
Four from four, Salah among them, before Hossam Abdelmaguid sent them through.
They were composed.
We weren't.
And that's the part no substitution was ever going to fix.