Socceroos star’s 40-second stunner in 62-year first after ‘amazing’ teammate gesture

Mohamed Toure needed just 40 seconds to open his account for the new season as the Socceroos striker picked up where he left off for club side Norwich.

The Canaries kicked off the new campaign with a 4-1 win against League One outfit MK Dons in the opening round of the Carabao Cup with Toure’s opening strike giving Norwich a dream start in front of their home fans at Carrow Road.

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Toure was played in behind the defence by Scottish international Kenny McLean and fired a thumping strike into the back of the net before some fans were even settled in the seats.

The 22-year-old, who bagged nine goals and provided three assists in only 11 Championship appearances last season, has been a goalscoring machine for Norwich since joining the Championship club in January.

His stellar form led to him leading Australia’s line against Turkiye and the USA at the World Cup before coming off the bench in the Round of 32 against Egypt.

In his first outing since the World Cup campaign, Toure showed no signs of complacency as he complemented his opening minute goal by providing a clever assist for Anis Ben Slimane’s seventh minute goal that doubled Norwich’s advantage.

“I was very happy to be back out there at our home stadium and happy to get my first goal of the season,” Toure said.

“We killed the game off early and we were in control for most of the game and we’re just happy to progress now.

“Starting the winning way is the most important and hopefully we can take it into the first league match next week.”

Toure’s performance was extra special given he swapped shirt numbers to pay tribute to injured teammate Ali Ahmed.

The Canadian international suffered an ACL injury in a pre-season friendly and in a touching gesture, Toure requested to switch from his usual No.37 to his close friend’s No.21 for the season.

“Yeah, it was amazing [to score wearing the shirt],” Toure said. “I felt like I felt for him when he went down last week here, I felt like I could just the smallest thing I could do for him was to weigh his number for him this season and show him that he is still a part of the squad and getting the goal I would say for him today was amazing.”

Toure’s Socceroos teammate Cristian Volpato was also on the scoresheet in Sassuolo’s 3-2 pre-season friendly loss to Augsburg in Germany.

While fellow Australian World Cup forward Tete Yengi scored too for Machida Zelvia as retired Socceroo Mitchell Duke also found the back of the net in a 5-1 win to open the J1 League season in Japan.

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Elsewhere, West Ham United won 3-1 against Portsmouth in their match since being relegated from the Premier League.

Australian defector Adrian Segecic, whose international allegiance is now with Croatia, scored the opener via a deflection, but the Hammers responded with three goals in the space of seven minutes either side of half-time with a Valentín Castellanos brace and a Jarrod Bowen strike.

Also in London, West Ham’s fierce rivals Millwall pulled off an incredible penalty shootout victory against Queen’s Park Rangers.

Millwall goalkeeper Lukas Jensen saved all four penalties to carry the Lions through to the second round.

“To save four penalties is really, really rare. And to put in the context behind that, Lukas has been missing for 15 months – he had a bad injury and then came back and had a setback,” Millwall boss Alex Neil said.

“I think he would have been dreaming about that moment for 15 months – making four penalty saves and being the reason we’re through to the next round.

“And I’m absolutely delighted for him because he’s a great professional and a good lad, so fair play to him.”

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