Paraguay's Australian-made commune nervous for crucial Cup clash

2 0 0 →1 3 →0 0 →1 5 →1 2 →1 0 →0 0 →4 4 →0 0 →0 2 →2 1 →3 2 →0 3 →0 3 →2 1 →2 5 →0 0 →0 0 →1 1 →0 2 →1 3 →1 0 →3 4 →2 0 →3 1 →0 - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- - →- Paraguay's Australian-made commune nervous for crucial Cup clash Fri 26 Jun 2026 at 5:19am In a tiny Paraguayan farming town, 130 kilometres from the nation's capital, Australian flags are flying in the wind. This is a rural commune where affable sheep farmers live off the land, mostly keep to themselves but know their neighbours' names, and always wave hello, according to residents. They share a fierce passion for their country and every four years, come together in their homes, cloaked in Paraguayan red and white, to celebrate the FIFA World Cup. But these are people whose surnames, such as Smith, Kennedy, Adams and Murray, reveal a century-old link to Australia. Some have fair hair and light-coloured eyes. Nueva Australia (which translates to "New Australia" in English) was founded by Australians in 1893, and their influence still lingers. So, when Paraguay plays Australia in the final Group D match of the 2026 World Cup on Friday, the town will be gripped by a strange cultural tension. Locals will still nervously barrack for their national team, known by locals as La Albirroja, but the area's Australian roots will add a distinct flavour to the game. Soel Gonzalez is the owner of an equine therapy farm for neurodivergent children in Nueva Londres (New London), an even smaller town adjacent to Nueva Australia in the same rural commune. While many direct descendants have died since Nueva Australia was first founded, Mr Gonzalez says he believes many current residents still share a cultural likeness to Australians, despite not sharing a language. Some cook Australian cakes and foods; many jump at the chance to welcome and take photographs with Australian travellers who travel through the dusty streets. But when it comes to World Cup allegiances, the roughly 4,500 residents of Nueva Australia still identify as Paraguayans first and foremost. The town's affinity with Australia, Mr Gonzalez says, ends at a general sense of curiosity with a country thousands of kilometres away. A failed utopia The founders of Nueva Australia were a band of rowdy labourers who sailed halfway across the world to chase a shared dream of creating a socialist utopia. A bitter industrial dispute between unionised and non-unionised wool workers, known as the Great Shearers' Strike of 1891, had failed to bring about improvements to working conditions. While it did lead to the foundation of the Australian Labor Party under a ghost gum tree in Barcaldine, many were left convinced no actual change could occur without a complete societal restructure. William Lane, a radical socialist, was one of those men. And when the government of Paraguay offered to gift 75,000 hectares of free land to migrants in an attempt to repopulate after a war, Lane was inspired. Drumming up a group of more than 200 mostly single shearers, stockmen and unionists, he chartered a tall ship that set off for Paraguay from Sydney in 1893 to establish a new colony in the middle of the forest. The migrants might have had a shared vision of socialism, but their differences were more pronounced. Lane had rules that proved unpalatable: no alcohol and no relationships with the local women to preserve the whiteness of the camp's population. Tensions boiled over when a second group of colonists arrived, and within months, the socialist utopia collapsed. In May 1984, Lane and 58 others left to establish a new camp called Cosme, 72 kilometres south, while the rebels remained in New Australia. That second venture failed, too. Five years after leaving Australia, Lane ditched the endeavour and moved to New Zealand, returning to his previous journalism career. Many other Australians, including poet Mary Gilmore, returned home, settling in Victoria and the South Australian Riverland. Eventually, the Paraguayan government dissolved the cooperative, and each settler was given their own piece of land, ending the socialist dream for good. But to this day, thousands of Paraguayans can trace their ancestry to the colony. Night and day The sun will be high over Australia when the Socceroos take on La Albirroja in San Francisco. But the clock will be ticking toward midnight in Nueva Australia. Temperatures are expected to drop below zero at 11pm, when the match kicks off. Mr Gonzalez says he plans to watch over a glass of whiskey to stay warm and with a traditional Paraguayan asado lamb barbecue in his belly — a far cry from the teetotal and white ethno-state tenets Lane founded the settlement with almost 133 years ago. The town may be cheering for Paraguay, but he says they will not be expecting to breeze through Friday's clash against the Soccoroos. "We respect [Australia] a lot," he told the ABC. "They value technical growth a lot, so much so that the Paraguayan coach said he expects to face the fastest team in the World Cup [on Friday]."