The Socceroos boss says he’ll watch every minute of A-League Men action to assess players and the first weekend of the season turned into a marathon of scouting. Tom Smithies reports.
Thank goodness for Matt Simon. If it wasn’t for the retirement of the Central Coast Mariners’ icon, Graham Arnold would probably be in a really bad mood as he walks into Allianz Stadium, instead of mildly irritated.
As the rain sheets down on the brand new venue, Arnold slips through the crowd high up in the stands to find a suitable vantage point. Within minutes he’s grimacing at a turnover, then nodding approvingly as a young Australian sets up the first goal of the night in the Big Blue.
This was meant to be the third stop on Arnie’s Great Adventure, weekends of non-stop Isuzu UTE A-League observance as he plots who to take to next month’s FIFA Men’s World Cup – beginning on Friday night last week, watching Melbourne City against defending champions Western United. Except the second stop was Gosford, where Arnold had driven earlier on Saturday aiming to watch 70 minutes of the F3 derby, and see more of Jason Cummings, Garang Kuol and Rene Piscopo.
That was until the rain got heavier and heavier, the pitch at Central Coast Stadium flooded, and the game was postponed. Fortunately the rain had no effect on the pre-match function to honour Simon, with a number of his former coaches and team-mates in attendance. As he nosed his car out of the Central Coast Stadium car park, ahead of a dash down the F3 freeway to take in Sydney FC v Melbourne Victory, Arnold could at least tell himself that Simon’s tribute meant the trip wasn’t an entire waste.
The national coach wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to watch – and rewatch – every minute of A-League action, until FIFA deadlines force him to make hard and fast decisions on his World Cup squad. Last weekend Arnold himself took in three games live across the weekend (with that fourth game postponed), watched replays of the other two and will cover every game this weekend between himself and two scouts.
The first of those FIFA deadlines comes on Tuesday, when 55 names have to be submitted; then by November 8, that has to be trimmed to 26.
Arnold naturally is keeping his cards close to his chest – the list of 55 names is, in theory, to remain confidential to avoid affecting players’ performances.
And yet it’s not hard to work out the vast bulk of those who will make it, for in the past year – since the qualifier with Japan almost exactly a year ago – Arnold has called up 53 players. The odds of wild experimentation beyond that are long.
Of those 53, a couple were emergency call-ups – Alex Wilkinson and Ryan McGowan, primarily. A third – 18 of them – were from the A-Leagues, so it’s reasonable to assume that Kuol and Cummings, as well as more seasoned Socceroos in the competition, will be on the long list.
But there are some areas where Arnold – who threw the dice so dramatically in the play-off with Peru in bringing on a goalkeeper for the shootout – may have to gamble again. And that’s where it gets really interesting for some of the players based here.
Start at the centre of defence. This weekend, if all goes to plan, Harry Souttar will play around 45 minutes for Stoke City’s Under-23 team; and then, it’s hoped, a full game for the same team a week later. If Souttar comes through those unscathed he will be ready for reintroduction to Stoke’s first team – with three games possible in the Championship before Arnold must name his final squad of 26.
Likewise Kye Rowles, who like Souttar has taken naturally to international football, has one more x-ray to clear on his foot fracture before starting strength work – he too will have just a handful of games with Hearts to prove his fitness.
Arnold has made clear he wants to take them to Qatar, for his stocks are thin in reserve. Milos Degenek’s season is over in the MLS; Bailey Wright has played a total of 180 minutes since the start of the season for Sunderland.
So it wouldn’t be a surprise to see names like Curtis Good and Matthew Spiranovic on the long list, as A-Leagues-based players with international experience – except for the fact that as Arnold received teamsheets at AAMI Park and Allianz Stadium on Friday and Saturday respectively, both had succumbed to late injuries. Spiranovic is still out in Round 2, but for Good – back in City’s squad this weekend – this could be a pivotal game.
The full-back positions are still open too, especially with Nathanial Atkinson picking up an injury for Hearts in the UEFA Europa Conference League this week. Rhyan Grant might have hoped for a sterling performance against Victory at right-back to propel him back into the international reckoning, but got switched to centre-back once Wilkinson was injured. One injury has a ripple effect.
Across the league there are others hoping to sneak onto the long list, through the experience they offer or their potential – for instance Josh Risdon, Dylan Peireias and Andrew Nabbout. But so much is about timing, and the opportunities that appear.
Chris Ikonomidis was a key player for Arnold at the AFC Asian Cup in 2019 but had not been in the Australian squad for a year due to injury. Named on the bench for Victory on Saturday, Ikonomidis came into the fray to perfect effect with a goal and an assist, right in front of the national coach.
Daniel Arzani, by contrast, aiming to re-establish himself as Australian football’s creative winger, came off in the Australia Cup final with cramp after little more than an hour, and put in a limp performance in R1 of the A-League.
This is the conundrum for Arnold, trying to make guesses on how players will handle a packed World Cup schedule and how fit they will be in the first place. Part of his hunches will come from performance data, but much from live viewing. For the coach and his players, every minute really does count.
IN THE MIX?
A-Leagues players called up in World Cup qualifying since 2019
Andrew Redmayne (Sydney FC)
Mathew Leckie (Melbourne City)
Garang Kuol (Central Coast Mariners)
Jason Cummings (Central Coast Mariners)
Marco Tilio (Melbourne City)
Danny Vukovic (Central Coast Mariners)
Lawrence Thomas (Western Sydney Wanderers)
Alex Wilkinson (Sydney FC)
Rhyan Grant (Sydney FC)
Craig Goodwin (Adelaide United)
Ben Folami (Melbourne Victory)
Brandon Borrello (Western Sydney Wanderers)
Jamie Maclaren (Melbourne City)
Nick D’Agostino Melbourne Victory)
Bruno Fornaroli (Perth Glory)
Andrew Nabbout (Melbourne City)
Chris Ikonomidis (Melbourne Victory)
Daniel Arzani (Macarthur FC)
Josh Risdon (Western United)
Curtis Good (Melbourne City)
Ruon Tongyik (Western Sydney Wanderers))
Mustafa Amini (Perth Glory)
