Ipswich Town centre-back Cameron Burgess made his full international debut as Australia drew 2-2 with Mexico in a friendly in Dallas overnight. The 27-year old played the full 90 minutes against the world’s No.12-ranked side, starting alongside Harry Souttar in front of a 50,000 strong-crowd in Dallas, Texas.
“It was a special occasion. I’m really proud on a personal note,” commented Burgess, who has dreamt of playing internationally since his junior days with ECU Joondalup. “It was definitely one of my goals. It’s nice to have that ticked off and I’m hungry to get more (games for Australia) now.”
Burgess’ first taste of senior international football came in front of a boisterous, and predominantly Mexican crowd. “It was good to get out there with the boys, the stadium was a cool place to play football in front of a lot of fans,” said the veteran of 300 league and cup games in England.
“The crowd got it going. It was quite noisy (but) it was all background noise really. A few of the boys were asking about whether they were playing music during the game but I couldn’t tell you if that was going on to be honest. I didn’t hear a thing, I was focused on the game.”
Australia are next in action when they take on England at Wembley in mid-October. Playing at the home of English football would tick another box on Burgess’ football ‘to do’ list and also ease the bitter memory of being robbed of the chance to play there previously with Salford City, in the 2020 EFL Trophy final.
“I missed out on the chance to play at Wembley before (due to COVID) so it would be another crazy experience to play there for Australia,” he commented. “But it’s going back to club football now with Ipswich and focusing on that, doing the best I can there and anything on top of that is a bonus.”
Aberdeen-born Burgess has been on a journey through England’s lower leagues since leaving Perth in 2011, when he entered Fulham’s academy. The decade that followed took in spells at Cheltenham Town, Oldham Athletic, Bury, Scunthorpe United, Salford City and Accrington Stanley .
Since arriving at Ipswich in August 2021 he has become an integral part of the team, which last season finished a close second to Plymouth Argyle in League One. The new season may only be five games old but already Ipswich riding high as they tackle the English Championship.
