Australia kicked off its 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign with a clean 2-0 victory over Turkey at BC Place in Vancouver on June 14. What should have been a straightforward Group D result quickly devolved into one of the ugliest online exchanges of the tournament so far, with fans on both sides dragging a century-old military campaign into a football argument.
The match itself was decisive. Nestory Irankunda opened the scoring in the 27th minute, and Connor Metcalfe doubled the lead in the 75th. Turkey, playing in its first World Cup since 2002, never found an answer. The result left Australia level with the United States at the top of Group D.
A football match becomes a history lesson nobody asked for
Within minutes of the final whistle, Turkish supporters began sharing images of graves belonging to Australian and New Zealand soldiers, the ANZAC troops who fought and died during the Gallipoli campaign of 1915-1916. The posts were intended as mockery, a way of saying “you lost something bigger here” in response to losing a football match.
The backlash was immediate and fierce. Australian fans, veterans’ groups, and neutral observers condemned the posts as disrespectful to soldiers who died over a century ago.
