had cut his squad down to 29 ahead of a pre-World Cup friendly against Mexico on Sunday, needing to name just 26 players for the tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\nVolpato is expected to be named in the final squad, having turned down the opportunity for the 2022 World Cup.<\/p>\n<\/amp-img>Cristian Volpato of US Sassuolo Calcio runs with the ball whilst under pressure from Andrea Cambiaso of Juventus during the Serie A match between Juventus FC and US Sassuolo Calcio at Allianz Stadium on March 21, 2026 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Valerio Pennicino\/Getty Images)<\/span>Source: Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cI spoke to the coach,\u201d Volpato said back in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been wanting to call me to Australia for a few years, but I grew up watching the Azzurri, even the coach, and I\u2019m waiting for Italy, then we\u2019ll see how the rest goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Popovic and assistant coach Paul Okon travelled to Italy to meet with Volpato at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe told him about our plans, what we\u2019re trying to do, and then the rest is up to him,\u201d Popovic said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no ultimatums or any pressure. If he wants to play for Australia, whether it\u2019s in three months, six months, a year \u2026 they\u2019re young men, you have to respect the decisions they have to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s gone through the junior process, a lot of that with the Italian national teams. He\u2019s a quality young player that has a lot of potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hasn\u2019t played a lot of football, but recently, the last four games, he\u2019s come on in all of them \u2026 and now that he\u2019s indicated he\u2019s open to the idea (of playing for Australia), if he decides (to represent the Socceroos), he comes on the list of our 50 players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we will monitor him and be in regular dialogue with him in terms of medically and any support that we can give, but we\u2019ll see whether that happens or doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/amp-ima-video><\/p>\nMcGree RULED OUT of World Cup | 00:40<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nItaly again failed to qualify for the World Cup with some Aussie-based pundits saying the Socceroos should ignore Volpato, who had made it clear he dreamt of playing for Italy growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up with the 2006 (World Cup win), I had all the players on my wall. Obviously my dad, my nono, they were all just mad crazy about the Azzurri,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd obviously them being my idols, you grow up and you follow your dad or your nono, so it\u2019s always been my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
But former Australia and Manchester United goalkeeper Mark Bosnich argued the national team should not be turning its back on anyone who qualifies as an Australian.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he\u2019s good enough, of course they should,\u201d Bosnich said on SEN in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously he must be good if we\u2019re talking about him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not? Why not try? It\u2019s okay. There\u2019s not a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do recall Tony Popovic in a press conference saying \u2018if we have to sell the jersey, we\u2019ve got a problem\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand where he\u2019s coming from but you can always keep your options open.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people will say selfish, whatever, they have their own reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe as a nation, and we\u2019re not the only nation – Italy itself at the moment is having problems with their young talent in comparison to their past, they\u2019ve won four World Cups – but we as a nation as well, in my opinion, cannot afford to lose out on good players that could parade themselves and help Australia further themselves along in world football.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cristian Volpato has selected Australia over Italy. The Socceroos announced on Friday evening the Italy-based young gun, who was born and raised in Sydney, will be joining the train-on squad and pre-camp for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Watch the biggest Aussie sports & the best from overseas LIVE on Kayo Sports | New to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6807],"tags":[156],"class_list":{"0":"post-245751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leagues-cups","8":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}