Sign up now ><\/a><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\u201cHis quality is definitely there. He\u2019s playing Serie A. I think it\u2019s great,\u201d declared Aloisi, speaking at a Sportsbet promotional event on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an Australian. I know there\u2019s been a lot of talk about whether he should have been selected or not. I think it\u2019s brilliant that he\u2019s there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad that he\u2019s now representing the Socceroos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently playing for Italian club Sassuolo, Volpato rejected advances from former Socceroos boss Graham Arnold\u2019s ahead of the previous World Cup in Qatar in 2022, opting to chase a place with the Azzurri rather than representing his country of birth.<\/p>\n
Grandparents on both sides of his family hailed from Italy, making him eligible for selection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand where he was coming from at the start, because when you\u2019re first trying to make your way in Europe, you don\u2019t want too many distractions about flying overseas, coming back for the under-20 national team and all that, so he had to make it in Europe first,\u201d Aloisi continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what it\u2019s like to be in Italy as an Italian-Australian. You\u2019re Australian, so he would feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/amp-img>John Aloisi, Mark Schwarzer and Alexander Volkanovski speak to media during the Sportsbet promotional event. Photo by Mark Metcalfe\/Getty Images for Sportsbet<\/span>Source: Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAloisi also celebrated the inclusion of uncapped striker Tete Yengi, who was picked for the World Cup despite taking no part in Australia\u2019s qualifying campaign or the subsequent friendly games.<\/p>\n
The 50-year-old got a first-hand glimpse at Yengi during February\u2019s AFC Champions League match between Machida Zelvia Chengdu Rongcheng, when he scored two goals in a 3-2 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played against him in the Champions League this year and he scored a couple of goals against my team,\u201d Aloisi smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to him after that game and I said, \u2018You keep going the way you\u2019re going, you\u2019re a chance (for the World Cup).\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a different player to what we\u2019ve got \u2026 He\u2019s someone who\u2019s very tall. He\u2019s hard to pinpoint how you can mark him and what you can do against him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aloisi also suggested that Yengi\u2019s inexperience could work in Australia\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a bit of an unknown. They can analyse us, but how are they going to analyse players that they haven\u2019t really seen as much?\u201d Aloisi asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something different to what we\u2019ve got. It\u2019s a risk, but you have to take risks as a coach and I\u2019m sure that Pop knows what he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia will face the United States, Turkey and Paraguay during the World Cup group stage, with American pundits predicting the co-hosts will thump the Socceroos in Seattle later this month. Broadcaster Mike Grella labelled the Australian contest a \u201clay-up\u201d, while former US representative Alexi Lalas predicted the Socceroos would \u201cstruggle to score goals and maintain possession\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter listening to the way they\u2019re talking, they\u2019re putting fuel on the fire and that\u2019s dangerous with us because we love that,\u201d Aloisi laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love to be the underdogs. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe love people underestimating us. So I know that our team and the whole nation will be behind us, especially against the US.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia will face Switzerland for their final World Cup warm-up on Sunday AEST.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Socceroos legend John Aloisi has thrown his support behind Cristian Volpato following his divisive inclusion in Australia\u2019s World Cup squad, sympathising with the winger\u2019s last-minute allegiance switch. Less than 72 hours before Tony Popovic\u2019s squad announcement, Volpato shocked Australian football by committing to the Socceroos rather than Italy, who he represented at underage level. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246635,"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-246634","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\/246634","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=246634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}