Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Western Sydney Wanderers are 90 minutes away from the champion league title after a 1-0 win over Al-Hilal. We are all looking forward to this Sunday to see Western Sydney take on the world and potentially go on to play Real Madrid. In what was a fantastic game, I really want to praise all the players—Ante Covic, Daniel Mullen, Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Antony Golec, Mateo Poljak, Matthew Spiranovic, Iacopo La Rocca, Shannon Cole, Mark Bridge, Labinot Haliti, Brendon Santalab and Brendan Hamill—on an outstanding game.

We are very much looking forward to Sunday, but I also want to say to Lyall Gorman, the management, the entire club, the fans and all the people who have made the Western Sydney Wanderers the great success that they are, as someone who is born and bred in Western Sydney that we are very proud of you and the job you are doing on the world stage. We are proud not just because of your soccer and sporting success but because you are representing Australia on the world stage and doing an outstanding job.

Sunday is going to be an amazing match in front of 60,000 very excitable Saudi Arabian fans, with virtually no Australians being allowed to attend. It is, of course, going to be an amazing day not only for Western Sydney but also for Australia. We say to all of those involved: good luck, the wishes of the nation are with you and we look forward to seeing you become the first world champion Australian team.

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