Wonderful goals from Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe led Australia to a surprise 2-0 win over Turkiye in their opening World Cup match in Vancouver.

Irankunda became Australia's youngest-ever World Cup goalscorer when he latched onto Paul Okon-Engstler's long ball forward to produce a wonderful touch and finish after 27 minutes. 

Turkiye, who are actually ranked below Australia in the FIFA rankings but entered this match as favourites, applied plenty of pressure at 1-0 down, but another excellent strike put the game beyond them with 15 minutes to play, as Metcalfe scampered forward before finding the bottom-right corner from range.

Australia's victory puts them level on points with the United States at the top of Group D, while Turkiye and Paraguay remain pointless ahead of their pivotal meeting on Friday. 

Turkiye bossed possession early on in front of a vocal crowd at BC Place, but they were limited to hopeful long-range attempts from Arda Guler and Ferdi Kadioglu.

And they were caught out by a lightning counter after Guler shot straight at Patrick Beach. The ball was in the other net just 17 seconds after that save, with Irankunda brilliantly beating Merih Demiral in the left-hand channel before slotting beyond Ugurcan Cakir.

Turkiye almost responded in stunning fashion as Abdulkerim Bardakci thumped a left-footed strike towards goal from 25 yards, which Beach pushed against his post at full stretch. 

In need of more attacking impetus, Turkiye introduced Juventus forward Kenan Yildiz – who had been nursing a calf issue – at half-time, but they almost went 2-0 down when Harry Souttar's downward header was scrambled away by Cakir.

Beach then got down to keep out a curling free-kick from Guler, while he also had to stand firm at his near post to deny Zeki Celik as Turkiye set up camp on the edge of Australia's area.

But Tony Popovic's team got their clinching goal against the run of play when, following Ismail Yuksek's giveaway in midfield, Metcalfe squeezed his effort past the outstretched glove of Cakir.

New-look Socceroos make a statement 

Making their first World Cup appearance since they finished third in 2002, Turkiye had been tipped as potential dark horses, with Yildiz and Guler ones to watch. Instead, it was a new-look Australia side that grabbed the headlines. 

Australia named 10 World Cup debutants in their starting XI, with centre-back Souttar the only survivor from their run to the last 16 in 2022. 

Irankunda was one of those making his bow, and he became only the fourth Australian to net on his first World Cup outing, after John Aloisi, Tim Cahill and Craig Goodwin.

And, at the age of 20 years and 125 days, Irankunda surpassed Australia's previous youngest goalscorer at a World Cup – Brett Holman versus Ghana in 2010 – by almost six years.

Popovich made a huge call between the sticks as Beach made his competitive international debut, having only previously appeared in two friendlies. And the 22-year-old certainly repaid his coach's faith with eight saves – the most by any Australia goalkeeper in a World Cup match, surpassing Mathew Ryan's seven versus the Netherlands in 2014.

Turkiye fired off a staggering 30 shots, compared to nine for Australia, but they only narrowly edged the expected goals (xG) battle by 1.33 to 0.77, with few of their chances being clear-cut.

This is just the second time in seven attempts that Australia have won their opening World Cup match (also versus Japan in 2006), and they will now bound into Friday's clash with the USA in Seattle full of confidence.