By Vince Rugari
This is, as you may have noticed at some point in the past decade, far from a normal World Cup. For starters, it’s being staged in what is effectively a city-state — roughly the size of the greater Sydney area — with a chequered human rights record, and after a hosting rights process run by FIFA that remains shrouded in mystery, controversy and corruption allegations.
It’s also being held in November, in the middle of the European season — not the June-July post-season window that every previous edition has been played in. For coaches like Graham Arnold and the players aspiring to make it into his 26-man Socceroos squad for the World Cup in Qatar, which will be unveiled on Tuesday morning, that has all sorts of implications.
Graham Arnold has some huge decisions to make ahead of Tuesday’s World Cup squad selection.Credit:Getty
Usually, teams would get the luxury of a three-week pre-tournament camp, where tactical plans can be honed in detail, on-field combinations can be bedded in and, importantly, physiotherapists can get in some reasonably extensive work on injured players.
Not this year. Arnold was due to fly out to Doha on Friday, where he and his coaching panel will gather to watch the final round of matches at club level this weekend before settling on Australia’s squad. His players will begin arriving the following weekend. A week later, they’ll play France in their opening Group D fixture on November 23 (AEDT) at the Al Janoub Stadium.
Every minute counts, more than ever. Club form has always been important in international football, but at this World Cup, the nature of the condensed scheduling will require players to hit the ground running, and be able to back up quickly. It puts a magnifying glass on everything: how often they’ve played for their clubs, how confident they’re feeling, what level of continuity and understanding they have within the national team set-up, and whether they’re carrying any niggles that can be quickly shaken off.
“They have to have that type of physical fitness in them — with minutes,” Arnold said. “There’ll be some that we know that don’t have a lot of minutes, but we know what they can do; some of those are our best players. It’s about them coming in good physical status, and then it’s all about that one week before, getting the tactics right, the game plan right, practising it, and then off they go.”
The Socceroos have only three days after playing France before they face Tunisia, and another three-day break before Denmark. At Russia 2018, it was five days. That will inform the way Arnold composes his squad: he intends to take three goalkeepers, and two players for every other position, with probably an extra centre-back due to injury and form concerns over a handful of his best options, a third striker, and an “impact” player. That makes 26. Versatility, where possible, is a bonus for any contenders.
“When you’re looking at two players per position, then it starts getting a hard discussion,” Arnold said.
Around half of Arnold’s preferred starting XI are either injured, or just coming back from injury. That includes centre-backs Harry Souttar (knee) and Kye Rowles (broken foot), who are almost fully recovered but yet to play again for their clubs. Right-back Nathaniel Atkinson and star midfielder Ajdin Hrustic, who both rolled their ankles, are in a similar boat, although the former made a successful scoring for Hearts in the Europa League on Wednesday morning (AEDT). The most recent casualty is Martin Boyle, the Hibernian forward who injured his knee at the weekend. Boyle has been cleared to play, but has been told by specialists he’ll have to push through the pain barrier.
Others are fit, but have barely played, as the Herald and The Age’s analysis of minutes logged by Aussies this season shows. Awer Mabil, the winger who scored a long-distance screamer for the Socceroos against New Zealand, has made only five appearances for La Liga side Cadiz, for a grand total of just 162 minutes. Olyroos midfielder Denis Genreau is another who has spent most of the last few months riding the pine for French Ligue 1 outfit Toulouse. Tom Rogic, one of Australia’s best players of the past decade, has scarcely featured for West Bromwich Albion.
Cristian Volpato, the rising AS Roma star at the centre of a tug-of-war between Australia and Italy, has played more first-team minutes than all of them — although it remains to be seen if he would accept a call-up from Arnold.
For these players, Arnold has to weigh up their lack of game time, reputations, and previous or current experience at the highest level, against those who are playing more consistently at a lower level, but don’t quite have the runs on the board in international football — like Kenny Dougall, who has played more minutes than any other Australian midfielder this season for Blackpool in England’s second tier, but is seen as an outside chance at best of making the squad.
While he can swap out players from his squad due to medical reasons at any point until 24 hours before their first game, there is surely a limit as to how many hobbled or non-match fit players Arnold can carry, especially into a first-up clash with the reigning world champions.
“That’s the big question — that’s going to be Graham Arnold’s biggest dilemma. You can do it [with] one or two players, I don’t think you can do with many more,” Socceroos legend Mark Schwarzer said on Optus Sport’s GegenPod.
PREDICTED 26-MAN AUSTRALIAN WORLD CUP SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Maty Ryan, Mitch Langerak, Andrew Redmayne.
Defenders: Harry Souttar, Milos Degenek, Trent Sainsbury, Thomas Deng, Fran Karacic, Nathaniel Atkinson, Aziz Behich, Jason Davidson.
Midfielders: Aaron Mooy, Jackson Irvine, Ajdin Hrustic, Cameron Devlin, Riley McGree, Cristian Volpato*.
Forwards: Jamie Maclaren, Mitchell Duke, Adam Taggart, Jason Cummings, Garang Kuol, Awer Mabil, Mathew Leckie, Craig Goodwin, Martin Boyle.
*If Volpato turns down call-up, then Keanu Baccus
“Within your squad, every player should be at a level where you’re thinking, ‘Right, any one of these players may need to play.’ And if you’re already going there with four, five, six players that have hardly played any football, some not in 12 months, others in the last couple of months … that must be a real concern and a real headache. I’d be worried about that.”
As Arnold’s predecessor Ange Postecoglou points out, none of this is particularly unique to the Socceroos: it’s part and parcel of international football, and Australia’s opponents are feeling it too.
“Every manager on this side of the world is having the same sort of conversations. You could be describing [England manager] Gareth Southgate, that’s what they’re talking about here — they’ve lost two or three right-backs, he’s going to need a right-back, some players play more than others,” the Celtic boss said.
“That’s the challenge of being a World Cup manager. Going into a tournament, every time your players play, the one thing you’re thinking about is ‘please don’t get injured’. That’s what you have to cope with. But what you try and do, and I think what happens after the course of time, is that you embrace that part of it — you understand that it’s never going to be perfect.
“If guys are dropping out, there might be an opportunity there for somebody to come in who maybe exceeds what the other person was going to do. There’s a few in that boat for the Aussies. There’s a couple who are making some late runs, whether that’s in Australia, or here in Europe, and I reckon that’s where the focus should be.”
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