‘Plan C’ takes roundabout route to Dubai

a missed call from coach Graham Arnold after Boyle sustained a tournament-ending knee injury against Oman.

Given Australia open their Cup defence tomorrow, the 28year-old was rushed into camp and touched down in Dubai at 1am on Thursday.

However, things didn’t go quite to plan when the car that was supposed to drive him to the team hotel in neighbouring city Al Ain instead set out in the other direction.

“They took me to a different hotel, they drove me to Abu Dhabi two hours, dropped me off at the wrong hotel, and then I had to drive two hours back here.

“So I arrived at like 6am, had a couple of hours’ sleep, then (went to) training.”

Giannou, who was born in Greece but pledged his al- legiance to Australia in 2016, was selected ahead of the likes of in-form Adelaide United winger Craig Goodwin and overlooked incumbent striker Tomi Juric.

And while he’s not necessarily a like-for-like replacement for a winger, Arnold said he offered the team “something completely different”.

“He’s fit, he knows how to press, he’s a penalty box-type nine. He gives us something totally different to what we’ve got here.”

Giannou was part of Arnold’s first camp in Turkey in September and scored against Kuwait in the following month’s friendly.

He felt comfortable he was well-versed on the attacking principles of the new nationalteam era and his role when called upon.