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FourFourTwo
Sport
Richard Buxton

Who is Mat Ryan? Australia's World Cup shootout goalkeeper

Mat Ryan.

A third World Cup round of 32 encounter has been decided by a penalty shootout.

Egypt are set to see their World Cup journey extended after overcoming Australia on penalties in Friday's knockout showdown at Arlington's Dallas Stadium.

Both teams were level at 1-1 after extra time failed to settle matters, bringing it all down to the lottery of a shootout which the Pharaohs went on to win 4-2.

Who is Mat Ryan?

Mat Ryan

Just moments before the end of the additional 30 minutes of play, the Socceroos took the unusual decision of replacing their first-choice goalkeeper Patrick Beach.

Mat Ryan replaced his understudy for the shootout but was unable to prevent Egypt from converting all four of their spot kicks while his teammates missed two efforts.

Australia boss Tony Popovic introduced Ryan late on (Image credit: Getty Images)

Fans of the Premier League and La Liga will be very familiar with the 34-year-old, who has represented the likes of Arsenal, Brighton, Valencia and Real Sociedad.

He has also enjoyed spells in Serie A with AS Roma and Ligue 1's Lens, who narrowly missed out on Conference League qualification in his season with them.

Despite playing over 100 times for Australia, Ryan has fallen out of favour with head coach Tony Popovic initially replacing him with Aston Villa stopper Joe Gauci.

The New South Wales native's proficiency from the penalty spot may have earned him another cap in Texas but it did not save him ahead of the 2022 World Cup.

Ryan himself was substituted in the 120th minute of his country's play-off against Peru for Andrew Redmayne, whose sudden death save secured qualification.

Tim Krul succeeded at the 2014 World Cup where Ryan failed (Image credit: Getty Images)

Teams changing goalkeepers ahead of a penalty shootout is not uncommon and increasingly less so at the World Cup, where the Netherlands blazed a trail in 2014.

Louis van Gaal replaced Jasper Cillessen with Tim Krul at the end of extra time in their quarter-final showdown with Costa Rica before it went down to the wire.

It paid off for the Dutch, who won the shootout 4-3, but Australia weren't so lucky.

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