Six of Australia’s Socceroos squad arrived home in Sydney on Monday night, met by family and fans eager to salute the players on their history-making performance at Qatar’s World Cup.

Mathew Ryan, Jason Cummings, Cameron Devlin, Garang Kuol, Andrew Redmayne and Daniel Vukovic arrived at Sydney Airport on a Qatar Airways flight just after 8pm, while teammates Jamie Maclaren, Marco Tilio and Thomas Deng touched down in Melbourne earlier in the evening.

Their return to Australian soil makes real the end of the 26-man team’s stellar campaign in Doha, that saw tense clashes with Tunisia, Denmark, and Argentina and defied Australians’ – and their competitors’ – expectations.

“I can’t really believe that we’ve done it,” reflected Striker Jason Cummings as he arrived home. “I’m just over the moon.”

Cameron Devlin, one of the six unused substitutes who travelled to Doha last month and later traded his jersey with legend Lionel Messi at the team’s final game against Argentina, said it was lucky the jersey made it home after his luggage got lost.

“I made sure Dad had it on his carry-on, not underneath, just in case something happened,” he told reporters, explaining that he took the opportunity to ask to trade Messi’s jersey at the end of the match.

“I went to console all the boys first and then shook Messi’s hand and no one had said anything, so I just tried my luck and he said ‘I’ll see you inside,’ and that’s what happened.”

“I definitely wanted the other boys to have the opportunity first but no one took it, so I thought, ‘why not?’”