Socceroos head coach Graham Arnold says there are rising stars ‘at every A-League club’ contending for places in his squad for the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Speaking to Simon Hill and Alex Brosque on SEN’s weekly football show ‘The Global Game’, Arnold revealed his plans to host a training camp for a contingent of the overseas-based Australian players in the upcoming FIFA international window (31 May – 15 June), ensuring the current A-League players contending for a ticket to Tokyo can remain with their respective squads until the end of the 2020/21 Finals Series.
When it finally comes time to selecting his final squad, Arnold says players from all 12 A-League clubs will feature in his thinking, as he hopes to assemble a group of players with the potential to ‘shock the world’.
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For the first time since Beijing 2008, Australia are taking a national men’s team to the Olympic Games to compete in Tokyo 2020.
Graham Arnold’s Olyroos sealed its pathway to the Games on January 25, 2020 after beating Uzbekistan U-23’s 1-0 in an AFC U-23 Championship third-place play-off, thanks to a decisive goal scored by Perth Glory’s Nicholas D’Agostino.
What a stunning solo goal from Nicholas D'Agostino!
🎥: @FoxFootball #AFCU23 #GoAustralia pic.twitter.com/i49JWstNgU
— Subway Socceroos (@Socceroos) January 25, 2020
Of the 23 players who featured in Arnold’s squad at the AFC U-23 Championship in Thailand, 17 of those players currently ply their trade in the A-League.
Arnold told Hill and Brosque the 2020/21 A-League campaign has helped to develop some “impressive kids”, as young talent has shone through an entertaining and unpredictable season.
“I think people are asking if I’m going to take overage players to the Olympics,” Arnold said.
“I’m not going to build a team around three overage players; those three have to be able to fit into our team, or into the younger boy’s team. And that’s only if we’re weak in a position.
“I see at this moment that we’ve got a good number of players in every position.
“I look at the young kid (Mark) Natta at Western Sydney Wanderers – I’ll mention him because he’s a kid that’s come from nowhere in the last five months, you imagine what he could be like further (in) the future?
You’ve got kids like that in every A-League club, and there’s been some really impressive performances this year.
“Impressive kids: Piscopo’s doing well at Wellington, Joel King playing every week at Sydney FC… (King) is getting a great learning platform by playing next to Alex Wilkinson every week.
“That kid you expect will go on in leaps and bounds.
“I’d rather not name too many, but those kids, they’re a really young generation of 18 to 19-year-old’s. As long as they continue getting the minutes into them, and playing against grown men, then I can foresee that our future is bright.”
Arnold says it’s been a difficult process organising the logistics regarding preparation for the games ahead of his final selection of an 18-player squad for the Tokyo 2020 Men’s Football Tournament, which is currently scheduled to be announced in late June.
The upcoming FIFA international window (31 May – 15 June) presents Arnold with the opportunity to get a look at some of the players based at overseas clubs contending for a place in his final squad for Tokyo 2020 – something Arnold admits has not been possible to do in person since COVID.
No Australian-based players will be selected for Arnold’s training camp in the upcoming break – however the players in Olympic contention could still be chosen as part of Arnold’s Socceroos’ squad for their FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022â„¢ qualifiers in Kuwait in the same window.
“We’ve changed preparation on numerous occasions, obviously because of the changing COVID (situation) all the time. ” Arnold said.
“I was looking to have an overseas camp in March in Saudi Arabia to give all the overseas-based boys the opportunity.
“Because a lot of them we haven’t seen. When I say we haven’t seen them, I have seen them watching them play on video and that, but we haven’t seen them live.
“It was to give the overseas-based boys an opportunity, so we’ll use that FIFA window in June for the overseas boys.
“The A-League Olyroos boys will stay here and finish out the A-League before we go into preparation into Japan on the first of July, where we’ll have three weeks before our first game at the Olympics.
It’s exciting times ahead, I know the boys, it seems forever since we qualified for the Olympics, but they’re all excited as well as we are.
We get the preparation right and all the boys fit, then I believe we can shock the world.”
