The 2026 Australia Cup Round of 32 delivered three results the form guide did not expect, also known as a “cupset”:
Preston Lions came from two goals down to eliminate the defending champions Newcastle Jets.
Sydney United 58 saw off the Central Coast Mariners.
Lions FC, from the Queensland NPL, drew 1-1 with Perth Glory after extra time and won the shootout four penalties to two.
We’ve all heard the same explanation when one of these results comes in.
“The A-League clubs don’t really care about the Australia Cup.”
“It‘s only preseason, half the squad is still building fitness.”
“The manager hasn’t settled on his squad yet.”
“They treat the whole thing like a glorified friendly.”
These are easy lines to reach for, and I understand the appeal. But cupsets aren’t a yearly accident. They turn up every single season.
Sydney United 58 made a final back in 2022 and Heidelberg United made one just last year, both as NPL, semi-professional sides. Writing these clubs off as teams who couldn’t be bothered doesn’t really hold. Plenty of them are genuinely good, and a few go a very long way.
So this season I want to try something different. Rather than shrug and call it preseason, I want to look at what these cupsets actually share.
Is there a common thread that ties these upsets together, and if there is, what does it look like?
I’m going to test the idea three ways in each match.
The data, and whether the numbers could have warned us a cupset was coming before kickoff.
The tactics, and whether the tape shows the same patterns repeating from one upset to the next.
What happens when you put those two together, both in how the match-up actually worked and in what it reveals about the team that gets rolled.
Perth’s 2025/26 profile is not the profile of a team that dominates matches, and it points fairly clearly at how a night like this could unfold.
Start with the attack, because that is where Perth were the weakest last season. They sit in the bottom part of the league for shot volume, dangerous attacks and key passes. They generated 1.32 expected goals a game and took twelve shots, both among the league’s lowest.
Attacking Quality
Metric
Value
A-League Rank
xG per Shot
0.110
Top 3rd
Non-Penalty xG per Shot
0.103
Middle 3rd
Shot Accuracy
32.3%
Middle 3rd
Conversion %
10.3%
Top 3rd
Finishing (G-xG)
-2.29
Middle 3rd
Inside-Box %
61.1%
Bottom 3rd
The shots they did take were reasonable, with per-shot quality sitting around league average, but there were never many of them. This is a team that does not create a tonne of chances each match, and a compact opponent would only push that number lower.
Attacking
Metric
Value
A-League Rank
xG
1.32
Bottom 3rd
Non-Penalty xG
1.23
Bottom 3rd
Expected Goals on Target
1.12
Bottom 3rd
Goals per Game
1.30
Bottom 3rd
Shots per Game
12
Bottom 3rd
Shots on Target
3.8
Bottom 3rd
Shots Inside Box
7.3
Bottom 3rd
Big Chances Created
2.2
Bottom 3rd
Big Chances Missed
1.4
Top 3rd
Total Attacks per Game
93.4
Middle 3rd
Dangerous Attacks
38.8
Bottom 3rd
Corners
3.6
Bottom 3rd
Total Crosses
15.3
Middle 3rd
Accurate Crosses
3.5
Middle 3rd
Successful Dribbles
6.3
Bottom 3rd
Offsides
1.9
Middle 3rd
Shooting Performance
-0.20
Bottom 3rd
Expected Goal Difference
-0.23
Bottom 3rd
The possession numbers say something people often miss about Perth. They are not a control side. They held 44.5% of the ball across the season and passed at 77.1%, both in the bottom third of the league, while their long passing sat well above average. By profile, Perth are direct. Their best work comes from moving the ball forward quickly, not from patient possession in front of a set defence.
Defensively they are steadier. They tackle and intercept more than most teams and win their duels, which is the signature of a side that defends deep and works hard. The trade-off is that they face plenty of shots and keep few clean sheets, and their goalkeeping slightly underperformed the chances faced across the year. None of that loses you a match on its own. It does mean a tight game carries real risk if it reaches a shootout, which is exactly where Perth went out last season against Wellington.
So, the data-based prediction?
The match shaped up to be low-scoring grind with few clear chances, a game likely to be decided late or from the spot, and one Perth would win by moving the ball forward quickly rather than building slowly.
The interesting part is the gap between that and what happened, because the numbers say Perth are a direct team, yet they spent the match trying to play possession, and that tension runs through what we see below..
Caution by Design
From the opening exchanges, Perth set out to control the game rather than chase it. The shape was a 4-1-4-1, with a single pivot in front of the back four and Adam Taggart alone at the top. The plan was to hold the ball, move Lions FC around, and stretch their defensive block until a gap appeared. On paper that looks sensible against a lower-division side. It also asked Perth to play a way the season data says they are not built for, holding possession and passing patiently rather than moving the ball forward quickly. They were choosing to be a control team, and control is not their strength.
The intent showed up immediately. Perth won a free kick inside the Lions third and looked to work it wide and stretch the back line. Lions counter-pressed the moment the ball was cleared, won it back quickly, and broke toward the Perth goal around the halfway line before the move was snuffed out. Two minutes in, Perth had already seen why they would spend the night keeping numbers back. Lions were sharp in transition, and any Perth attack that broke down invited a fast counter the other way.
No Room in the Middle
Lions answered Perth’s control by compressing. Their midfield and defensive lines sat close together in their own third, narrow and deep, and refused Perth the central space the plan depended on. With the middle shut, Perth’s central midfield had nowhere to play and Taggart had nothing to receive. He spent long stretches with his back to goal and no support within reach.
The pattern was clear by the twenty-minute mark. Perth pressed the Lions back three for the second time in the match and built an attack from the turnover. Lions held their compact block and steered the move away from goal, until Perth were left trying to dribble into the penalty area from the wing. The attack broke down there, which is where most of Perth’s attacks broke down. Pushed off the middle, forced wide, and stopped at the edge of a crowded box.
By the 46th minute the compression was producing football that went nowhere. One sequence ran to seven consecutive headers and lobbed passes as Perth searched for a teammate with a yard of space. There was none to find. The block did not stretch, and Perth had no clean way to play through it on the floor.
The Direct Play and the Result
Perth’s equaliser did not come from the plan. It came from setting the plan aside. Trailing in extra time, Perth stopped trying to build patiently and stopped working the ball through the wings. They moved it forward quickly and delivered into space, and that is when they finally scored.
Andriano Lebib equalised in the 108th minute. By then Perth had switched to a back three that pushed Lebib high as a wing-back, and he arrived in the box on a direct move as the ball was crossed into space. Lions’ wide players had tucked inside and lost track of him, and he finished unmarked. It was quick, vertical, and aimed at a gap rather than at a stretch.
The contrast sits an hour earlier. Around the 47th minute Perth had a similar chance to attack a gap, and they tried to work it out through the wings instead. The move slowed, Lions reset their shape, and the opportunity closed. Same opening, two different responses, and only the direct one produced a goal.
The Verdict: Did Perth Take Lions FC Too Lightly?
Put together, the three threads describe a favourite that was fully engaged and quite deliberately careful. That matters for the friendly argument. A team treating this as a hit-out does not defend with four players back on the break, does not hold a compact shape for two hours, and does not find its goal by switching system in extra time. Perth were not casual but cautious. The harder question is why a side built around a Socceroo striker created so little across two hours, and the answer points less at effort than at personnel.
What This Says About Perth’s Season
Perth lack a player who can operate between the lines and support the striker.
Look at the two problems together. Taggart spent the night isolated at the top of a 4-1-4-1, with nobody close enough to combine with when the ball reached him. In the same season, Perth ranked in the bottom tenth of the league for key passes and created few big chances all year. The team has no natural link between midfield and attack, and the shape they chose removed the one position that could have provided it.
A central attacking midfielder or a second striker would address both. Someone in that role gives Taggart a partner instead of a lone shift up front, and gives the midfield a forward outlet in the exact central zone Lions spent the night compressing. Perth found a version of this by accident in extra time. When they switched to a back three and pushed more bodies forward, they finally created the moment that scored. The permanent version of that is a player, not a formation change made at 1-0 down.
This is not only a recruitment point. The 4-1-4-1 isolates whoever plays up top by design, so part of the fix is structural. But a genuine number ten or second forward would give Perth a way to hurt a compact defence without having to abandon their shape in desperation, which is the situation they found themselves in against Lions.
Maybe it is time for someone at Perth Glory to get Dimi Petratos on the phone?
Video analysis and telestration in this post are my own work, created using Football Australia match footage for the purpose of criticism and review under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Football Australia is acknowledged as the source of the original footage. Audio has been removed for copyright reasons.
