It was a sea of green and gold in the pre-dawn darkness. Standing room only, not an empty seat in the house. Diehards all.
Alex Madikian lived just around the corner. He had rolled out of bed before 4am and walked to the Happy Wombat where he and his band of devotees have booked the piano for every game.
He was still in his pyjamas.
Across from him, Michael Kekovski was dictating jabs into his phone every few seconds, posting a string of comments on Egypt's official Instagram page with a beer in his hand.
A few players had milked falls and slides, running out the clock, and Kekovski was letting them have it.
Australia had two shots at goal in the first few minutes of the game, but midfielder Emam Ashour had punched the back of the net in the 13th minute and now the fans felt the challengers were slowing Australians down.
An unfortunate own goal by defender Mohamad Hany in the 55th minute, levelling the score 1-1, saw the Hunter Street pub erupt.
"We're on fire," Kekovski said as he rattled another comment into his phone.
It should not have been a surprise that, before 5am on Saturday morning in a packed pub of supporters, that statistics and analysis from every play flowed as freely as the beer and coffee coming over the bar.
"They're still on their front foot, but they're susceptible to a counter-attack," said Laura Knipe, who returned to Australia only last week from a two-year stint playing in Spain to join the Young Matildas squad.
"They don't have an easy replacement for Jordan Bos, who has just gone off with an injury," her dad, Stephen, added as a serve of hot chips landed on their table at half-time.
"He's the gun fullback, so that is going to leave them susceptible."
He smiled.
"If you're going to come to the Happy Wombat at four in the morning, you're only going to find football fans. There won't be too many bandwagoners."
Across the room, in the thick of the front bar, Andrew Jacobs was predicting substitutions for the second half and running through scenarios of Australia's chances.
It was going to come down to the wire.
"Come on Aussies!" Kekovski cheered over the commotion. "Get your hair out of your eyes!"
He was the first in his Macedonian family born in Australia, he said.
"I'm so passionate about Australia," he said. "We've been at every game here. We book out the piano and we book extra seats. Everyone comes and sits with us."
Nick Binjos' family was Greek and Italian. Football, he said, brought the world together.
"It's a universal language," he said, and pointed to one of the screens blasting the game into the darkness of the early morning from every wall. "That communicates to everyone."
"It's a love language. And, like love, there are going to be hearts that are going to be f---ing broken."
As the match ground into penalty shootout, the tension seemed to seep into the lungs. Every breath seemed to hold.
Mahmoud Saber put another point on the board for Egypt, answered by Jackson Irvine and Awer Mabil for Australia.
A final miss, and a clean streak of goals for Egypt, sealed the Australians' defeat. The final score: 1-1, 2-4 on penalties.
"At the end of the day, if you turn up as a champion, you'll always be a champion," Binjos said.
Australia started brightly, with Cristian Volpato brilliantly turning Egypt's defence before finding the crossbar in the fifth minute.
Egypt took the lead from a recycled free kick, where Karim Hafez whipped a terrific ball into the back post and Ashour, who had gotten away from Irankunda, fired a bullet header past Australian goalkeeper Patrick Beach.
Nine seconds into the second half, Australia received a massive let-off when Omar Marmoush broke free but fired wide.
Then the Socceroos hit back via the own goal.
Beach pulled off an extraordinary diving save, backpedalling then pawing the ball over the bar to deny Rabia at the death and send the game to extra time.
But it was in vain and Egypt will now progress to take on either Argentina or Cape Verde in the round of 16.
Despite his side's exit, Popovic felt the Socceroos had tried their hearts out all tournament.
"I've always maintained it's a wonderful group. They showed how good they are tonight," he said.
"At this moment right now, everything's a little bit tough to take, but I'm sure every Australian is proud of the group and what they did throughout the tournament and tonight."
with reporting by AAP.
