Socceroo hopefuls left out in the cold
Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou did not spring any surprises by axing Adam Sarota, Josh Brillante and the injured Curtis Good from his Brazil World Cup squad – but that did not make the decisions any easier.
Postecoglou had no choice but to omit Newcastle United defender Good yesterday after he failed to recover from a hip flexor problem that may need surgery.
That was no doubt the most disappointing of the three decisions considering the Socceroos struggled in that area of the park in their lacklustre 1-all draw against South Africa in Sydney on Monday night.
“We gave Curtis a good chance. To his credit, he worked really hard. But we had a timeline and we tested him out a few days ago, and he couldn’t get back up to where we wanted him to,”
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Postecoglou said.
“The wise decision was to send him back home and get his injury sorted out.”
Sarota, who was thrown into the Brisbane Roar team by then-coach Postecoglou before he was sold to FC Utrecht, said he was gutted to not make the plane for Brazil.
He had a feeling the bad news was coming when he wasn’t included in an 11 v 11 training game last Friday.
But the 25-year-old has already refocussed on making the Asian Cup squad, with that tournament kicking off in Australia in January next year.
“With Adam it was a similar thing. He’s had a knee reconstruction this year,” Postecoglou said.
“He worked hard getting back into playing first-team regular football, but we weren’t confident with the intensity we were training at that he’d be able to carry through.”
And midfielder Brillante, just 21, was always going to find it tough to make the cut, with just one Socceroos appearance to his name.
“With Josh, we’ve got quite a few midfielders in the squad. I wanted to bring him in because I rate him very highly, and I know he’ll be a player that will be called up again,” Postecoglou said.
Injured Socceroos captain Mile Jedinak, meanwhile, said he was on track to play in his team’s first World Cup fixture against Chile on June 13.
“It’s going along quite well. I’ve stepped up my training and I’m working with the medical team. It’s progressing really well. I’m happy with where it’s at,” he said.
The 27-strong squad will fly to Brazil today. Australia’s final warm-up game is against Croatia on June 7.