From the minutiae, to next-gen stars not pulling their weight, Socceroos coach Tony Popovic and his team of assistants are poring over every detail of his tenure so far.
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Whether they have held too many meetings, or too few, and the length of the meetings. The content of training sessions and how messages are delivered during those sessions … they all form part of the discussions at Football Australia’s new headquarters in Sydney.
Popovic, who took charge of the side for the first time during the October window last year, has six points from four games in charge; which sees the Socceroos sitting in second place in Group C during the third round of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup in North America. Everyone involved knows staying there for four more games will deliver automatic qualification for football’s showpiece event. Yet failure to do so will force the side into the fourth and possibly fifth rounds of qualifying, where the path to the first ever 48-team World Cup gets slimmer and slimmer.
In two months, the wild ride to the biggest-ever edition of the tournament resumes. Indonesia, with newly installed coach Patrick Kluivert (yes, the Dutch legend) at the helm, travel to Sydney; where anything less than three points for the hosts will set alarm bells ringing.
It’s no wonder Popovic is looking into every crevasse to ensure nothing gets missed.
While discussing intricate details this week, Popovic also chose to address something a little larger.
Asked about one-time wonderkid Daniel Arzani and where he was at in his journey, the Socceroos boss lined up the Melbourne Victory winger like he did to opponents during his glittering playing career.
“I know Daniel well and he’s got potential,” Popovic started, while shifting in his seat.
“We talk about him with potential and I think we’ve been talking about that since he was 18.”
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Arzani has carried the tag of “the next big thing” in Australian football since bursting onto the scene in 2018 with a flurry of dribbles, assists, goals and awards for Melbourne City in the A-League.
His dazzling feet, smart decision-making and ability to glide past defenders earned him a shock spot in Bert van Marwijk’s Socceroos squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where he came on as a second-half substitute in group stage games against France, Demark and Peru in a side that exited the tournament with two defeats and a draw.
A transfer from Melbourne City to Manchester City followed straight after the tournament and he was loaned to Scottish giants Celtic after barely having time to unpack his bags. After a few false dawns since the era of the golden generation, it appeared Australian football had finally (no, really) found its next big thing; only for an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury on his Celtic debut to send the trajectory of Arzani’s career on another path.
Loan spells in the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium followed, before he landed back in the A-League with Macarthur after a four-year spell that felt more like a cyclone than sport.
A move to Melbourne Victory a year later, with Popovic then at the helm, saw Arzani rediscover some of his best form.
Now 26, the winger might feel singled out by what his former club boss, now in charge of the national side, shared next; though it’s nothing Popovic hasn’t told Arzani to his face, and really about something bigger than one player.
It is about the clamour for a player with Arzani’s skillset – and there have been several over the years – to be given every opportunity to shine even if they might not be ready. It’s about the desperation from fans to see the national side play a brand of football that you might find on a street in any city in Brazil. Adjacent to that noise is a coach who sees every minute of every game, training session and moment in between, with and without the ball. Instead of flashy social media clips, they form a fuller picture. Perspective is everything.
Arzani has seven Socceroos appearances to his name. Six of those came prior to his ACL tear in 2018. If not for that misfortune, he’d probably have many more caps on his resume, but good form with Victory saw him picked for the final window of the second round of qualifying in June last year. He’d miss selection for the first window of the third round in September – which turned out to be Graham Arnold’s last in charge before stepping away – but Popovic re-ignited the relationship in October.
What he saw left him underwhelmed and Arzani didn’t get on the field.
“When he doesn’t play everyone questions why he doesn’t play, but he needs to raise his level,” Popovic said bluntly.
“Doing one good dribble or doing one good trick or setting up one goal should not be enough to play for the Socceroos.”
From the outside, and with goals hard to come by during a difficult qualifying campaign, a player like Arzani would appear to be the perfect answer with dribbles, tricks and assists.
But Popovic chose to lay bare the other side of what you could call the ‘next big thing’ conundrum.
“It wasn’t good enough in October,” Popovic said referring to Arzani’s efforts away from the spotlight.
“His level was really poor in training. Now maybe for him it’s OK, but it’s not enough, so every player needs to raise their level.”
A similar weight of expectation fell on the young shoulders of striker Garang Kuol, now struggling to break through at Premier League side Newcastle United after transferring from the Central Coast Mariners, and another winger in Nestory Irankunda.
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Without the monumental injury setback, Irankunda’s footballing story and that of Arzani’s isn’t too different.
A kid who bursts onto the scene with breathtaking skill in the A-League, followed by a call-up to the national team while still a teenager and then a move to a mega-club that seemed before its time.
German giants Bayern Munich came calling for 18-year-old Irankunda. The former Adelaide United star has been on the right and wrong ends of selection calls when it comes to the Socceroos as well, with first Arnold and then Popovic having to defend themselves in the court of public opinion for not picking a player on the books of one of the biggest clubs in the world.
In search of senior minutes, after being part of the youth team set-up at Bayern, Irankunda recently secured a loan move to Swiss Super League club Grasshoppers — but Popovic insists that might not be enough to earn a recall in March.
“Just playing a game because someone has got some minutes at Grasshoppers, for example, that can’t be enough,” Popovic said.
“They need to be at elite level at Grasshoppers, then they are elite for the Socceroos and then they can help us get in the top two.
“In 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.
“Your expectation and my expectation should be higher because history shows we don’t do that often. We don’t go automatically to World Cups, but that is something we should aspire to. We shouldn’t shy away from that.”
Not picking very good players is an odd way, on the surface, to solve that problem, but Popovic clearly thinks betting the farm on human highlight reels isn’t the answer. The “expectation,” in his words, needs to be higher and only “elite” commitment to everything the coach sees as sacred is likely to be rewarded with regular minutes.
Popovic has spoken multiple times about his admiration for Japanese football, but also his desire for Australia to match and then overtake their regional rivals.
The gap to Japan, who lead Group C, is nine points. The Samurai Blue have won five of their six games in this phase to be on 16 points, which is the joint-highest total across the three groups with Iran. One more win from four remaining fixtures will ensure they seal automatic qualification. That is certainly something to be envious of.
Japan, from Popovic’s perspective, are the current standard bearers and he believes its possible for Australia to “raise the bar.”
In the coach’s eyes, Australian football should hold every player, even the absurdly talented ones, to the highest standard. If Popovic can find a way to marry that talent to his standards, then something special is truly possible.
