Socceroos coach Tony Popovic has provided a scathing assessment of one-time wunderkind Daniel Arzani’s prospects of returning to the national team – and, in turn, delivered a stark warning to the new generation of young players emerging in the A-League with stars in their eyes and grand hopes of reaching the top.
In his most expansive interview since being appointed to Australia’s top men’s job four months ago, Popovic expressed optimism that the domestic competition’s recent hard pivot towards youth development would eventually pay dividends for the Socceroos.
Daniel Arzani earned a Socceroos recall in October – but coach Tony Popovic has delivered a brutal appraisal of his performances in training.Credit: Getty Images
But despite widespread excitement about Australia being potentially on the brink of another ‘golden generation’, Popovic implied that most of those young players needed a reality check when it comes to the standards required in Europe, and what he will be requiring of them should they be called up for international duty.
Arzani, who burst onto the scene at the 2018 World Cup, was signed by Manchester City but then struggled to carve out a career in Europe, stands before them as a cautionary tale. Now 26, he played under Popovic at Melbourne Victory during the 2023-24 season, and on his day is one of the A-League’s most exciting, creative players.
But Arzani’s day, Popovic said, does not come around often enough – as he saw first-hand when he was recalled for the Socceroos’ October camp.
“Look, I know Daniel well, and he’s got potential, and we talk about him with potential,” Popovic told reporters during a roundtable interview this week.
Socceroos coach Tony Popovic.Credit: Getty Images
“I think we’ve been talking about that since he was 18. What’s he now, 25, 26? And when he doesn’t play, everyone questions why he doesn’t play. But he needs to raise his level. We need goals, we need assists. That’s what Daniel needs to do. Doing one good dribble or one good trick or setting up one goal should not be enough to play for the Socceroos. It needs to be more.
“I had him in camp in October. He knows what I think of him, so I’ll be telling you something now that he knows: It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t good enough in October. His level was really poor in training. Now maybe for him, it’s okay, but it’s not enough.”
The Socceroos’ latest big hope, Nestory Irankunda, was this month loaned by Bayern Munich to Swiss club Grasshoppers in a bid to expose him to regular first-team football. Popovic didn’t select the 18-year-old sensation in November to help him “grow and settle” further in Germany, but said simply playing in Switzerland would not cut the mustard.
“Just playing minutes is not enough,” he said.
Nestory Irankunda.Credit: Aleksandar Jason/Football Australia
“And I don’t think just because he went to Bayern Munich, that we put him in a separate bracket that if Nestory plays minutes, then he gets selected for the Socceroos. He’s 18. I envisage, if he fulfils his potential, he should be a Socceroo for many years. But he needs to be more than just playing some minutes.”
Having taken the reins in September following Graham Arnold’s resignation, Popovic has wasted little time putting his stamp on the national team set-up – though while they are undefeated in his four matches at the helm, their failure to beat Saudi Arabia at home and then Bahrain away in the final window of 2024 has left Australia’s hopes of qualifying for next year’s World Cup on a knife’s edge.
With four matches to go in this round, the Socceroos are second in Group B, with the top two teams to earn an automatic spot at the tournament in North America – but they are nine points adrift of runaway leaders Japan. Two wins from their next two matches, at home to Indonesia on March 20 at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium and then away to China five days later, are a must to keep their ambitions alive.
Despite widespread predictions that the World Cup’s expansion to 48 teams would make Australia a shoo-in every four years, qualifying remains far easier said than done.
“We want to be competing with Japan. That’s our goal, that we want to be competing with the best,” Popovic said.
“Our last two World Cups, we went through the play-off system, but we keep expecting to make top two. That’s good. But if we expect to come in the top two, then we must raise the level. We must raise the bar.
“History shows we don’t do that often. We don’t go automatically to World Cups. That’s something that we should aspire to. We shouldn’t shy away from that. But if we want that, just playing a game because someone’s got some minutes at Grasshoppers, for example – that can’t be enough. They need to be at elite level at Grasshoppers. Then they are elite for Socceroos, and then they can help us get in the top two.”
The changes made by Popovic go far beyond his selections, handing shock call-ups to the likes of A-League quartet Jason Geria, Luke Brattan, Rhyan Grant and Hayden Matthews, or the team’s new 3-4-2-1 system, which has reset what had grown to be predictable attacking patterns during the latter days of the Arnold era.
Tony Popovic during his first press conference as Socceroos coach.Credit: Getty Images for Football Australia
They also stretch off the pitch, to the way players live their lives when they are with their clubs.
One of the first appointments Popovic made to his staff was the introduction of a nutritionist, Julie Meek. Since then, according to a source close to the playing group, lollies have been effectively banned from the team hotel, pasta dishes have been served without sauce and a more stringent approach to player skinfolds has been taken by the staff.
Popovic is yet to name an unchanged team as Socceroos coach – he has made five changes to his starting XI on each occasion since his debut match in charge – and explained that the food and drink players consume had a material impact on their ability to perform through short turnarounds. And contrary to the prevailing view on the historical strengths of Australian players, he said the physicality and fitness levels had “gone to another level” in football and that locals were struggling to match it.
“We brought in a nutritionist more on the education side. It’s not, you know, ‘have that, have that, can’t have that.’ It’s to educate them on what can get them to perform in one match extremely well,” he said.
“How do you back that up four days later? If players believe that they can eat and drink what they want after a game and the following day in recovery and just turn it on four days later, it doesn’t work. It certainly doesn’t work overseas.
“I mean, we talk about diet plans and details. You should spend a few days in Man City or Liverpool, and you’ll see that they basically get things put on their plate on what they should eat, but it doesn’t get talked about. You should spend a few days with Pep Guardiola, and you’d see quite quickly how important the diet is there, because they’re playing 60 to 70 games a year. If that’s not at an elite level, they can’t back up that performance every three days.
“What we’re saying is Socceroos is the highest level possible. You’re playing for your country. That needs to be elite. The elite will survive and if you’re not elite, you’re not going to be able to play for the Socceroos.”
