In the shadows of the 2022 World Cup, when Socceroos fans were looking ahead to the next four-year cycle, many expected that precocious Manchester City product Alex Robertson would become a key player for the national team.
And when then-coach Graham Arnold handed him a long-awaited debut in one of Australia’s first friendlies of 2023 – after which Robertson made the bold declaration that he wanted to not just go to the World Cup with the Socceroos, but try and win it – things looked good.
Alex Robertson has put together a terrific season in England’s second tier with Cardiff City.Credit: Getty Images
“It’s a privilege to put on this shirt,” Robertson after coming off the bench in the Socceroos’ homecoming clash with Ecuador in March 2023.
“My country, since I was young. It’s just a really special night for me and my family. It was something else. It wasn’t really just another game of football – there was emotion to it inside me, and I could feel it in the stadium as well.”
But Robertson hasn’t pulled on that green and gold shirt – one that his father and grandfather wore before him – in nearly two years. He still hasn’t featured for Australia in a competitive match, and can still choose to represent England, Scotland or Peru, the three other nations he is eligible to play for through family heritage.
And he hasn’t been in a single squad under Tony Popovic, who says he continues to be “ineligible” to play for the Socceroos due to a paperwork issue.
Alex Robertson’s international future is shrouded in mystery.Credit: Getty Images
“He’s made himself unavailable at the moment, so he’s ineligible for us,” Popovic said.
“If he was eligible in terms of all the paperwork and everything that’s been done, then I could say I didn’t select him if he wasn’t in the squad. At the moment, it’s not even a selection issue. He’s ineligible to be selected. So he’s not on the list because we can’t select him.
“Unless that changes, then he doesn’t become a player that could potentially be on our monitoring list. That’s been the same since I came in. I don’t know what the process is now, what has to happen exactly, but when I came in October, he was ineligible. He still is not on my list because I can’t select him.
“What’s happened before that, how it got to that point, and why he’s not on the list, that’s a different discussion. But as the head coach, if he was available, then I could answer your question, why he’s in or why he’s not in.”
Robertson, 22, moved permanently at the end of last season from City, where he was a favourite of Pep Guardiola and an understudy to Kevin De Bruyne, to Cardiff City in the English Championship. While they have been relegated to League One, he played 39 times for the Bluebirds in all competitions, and has been one of their brightest lights in midfield – a position where Australia needs high-quality options, particularly given the injury to Jackson Irvine, ruling him out of June’s crucial World Cup qualifiers against Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Robertson, with his technical prowess and calmness on the ball, would fit the bill nicely.
It’s unclear what the future holds for him at club level – it is hard to imagine a player of his talents dropping to League One – but at international level, he remains in a strange stand-off with Football Australia.
Sources familiar with his situation, who were not authorised to speak publicly, said that FA has approached Robertson’s camp before and after Popovic’s appointment as coach to resolve the question of his eligibility, but the information they sought was not forthcoming.
Socceroos coach Tony Popovic.Credit: Getty Images
Sources close to Robertson, meanwhile, say they are unaware of any paperwork issues, have not been directly contacted by Popovic or FA, and that he has been focusing on his season with Cardiff City.
Robertson’s dissatisfaction with the Australian set-up is believed to relate to his last appearance in camp, the October 2023 window in which Australia met England at Wembley Stadium and then had a “Soccer Ashes” showdown with New Zealand in London. Robertson, Mohamed Toure and Patrick Yazbek were officially named by Arnold as “train-on” players, but Robertson wasn’t named in Arnold’s squad for either match, unlike Toure and Yazbek, who were named for both, with the former getting on the field for a few minutes against England.
Socceroos striker Kusini Yengi, who played with him when he was on loan at Portsmouth last season, said last year that Robertson was “confused” about what he wants in football.
“He’s obviously got some decisions to make … I’d love to play with him in a Socceroos jersey, and I’m constantly telling him to come and play and give me some through balls and some assists,” Yengi said. “I’m hoping one day in the future we’ll see him playing in the Socceroos again. I think he’s just trying to figure everything out, but I think when the time comes he’ll make a decision, and he’ll come back and play for us.”
Popovic appears to have moved on, and is canvassing other options to bolster Australia’s midfield for their upcoming qualifiers, in which they could clinch a spot at the 2026 World Cup. Having previously said he would never “sell the Socceroos jersey” to a player, the ball appears to be in Robertson’s court. The only problem, however, is that Robertson is seemingly unaware the ball has been played his way, or that he might be on a different court entirely.
Robertson is one of three high-profile dual-international prospects the Socceroos were hoping to tie down in this cycle. They have succeeded with one, Parma centre-back Alessandro Circati, but have made no progress with the other, Sydney-born Italian youth international Cristian Volpato, who turned down selection for the 2022 World Cup to focus on his club career.
This season in Serie B, Volpato has played fewer minutes for Sassuolo than he did last season when they were relegated from Serie A.
