Veteran Tim Cahill's record as Australia's World Cup saviour has helped keep him in the running for a place in Russia next month – despite the fact that he has played barely an hour of soccer since quitting his A-League side Melbourne City six months ago to move to Millwall in pursuit of more game time.
But one of Australia's few in-form frontmen, Jamie Maclaren, who scored a hat-trick for Scottish Premier League club Hibernian in the amazing 5-5 draw with Glasgow Rangers at the weekend, has missed the cut as Socceroos boss Bert van Marwijk trimmed his preliminary squad of 32 players down to 26 amonth out from the start of Australia's World Cup campaign.
Controversial selection: Tim Cahill has been named in the 26-man squad.
Photo: AP
Melbourne City's teenage sensation Daniel Arzani is still in the reckoning for a place in the final 23-man squad, which will represent the country in group games against France, Denmark and Peru.
Cahill's inclusion will divide public opinion. He has a tremendous record for Australia over the decades and has scored so many crucial goals, not the least being his brace against Syria, which ensured that the Socceroos got past their Middle Eastern opponents in a World Cup playoff.
But balanced against that are his age – he is now 38 – and his lack of any demonstrated form. He quit Melbourne City in an effort to secure more game time and moved back to his alma mater of Millwall, in England's Championship.
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But the Lions had hit a rare vein of form and the veteran striker simply could not break into a winning team, being reduced to cameo appearances for a few minutes at a time off the bench.
Stalwart Bailey Wright, a member of the 2014 World Cup squad in Brazil, the 2015 Asian Cup-winning squad and a regular in Ange Postecoglou's starting 11 through the qualifiers, has been jettisoned.
Daniel Arzani also made the cut.
Photo: AAP
A poor performance when tried at right back in the warm-up game against Norway in Oslo – van Marwijk's first game in charge – cannot have helped Wright's cause, but he was not alone that night in March when Australia were woeful in a 4-1 defeat when very few players would have impressed the new boss.
Striker Apostolos Giannou, full back Alex Gersbach, centre half Aleksandr Susnjar and Japan-based goalkeeper Mitch Langerak, all named in the preliminary 32-man squad, were also cut.
The latter has spent years backing up Mat Ryan and must count himself very unlucky to have been usurped at this stage by both Brad Jones (based in the Netherlands) and Daniel Vukovic (Belgium).
Five of the squad – Arzani (Melbourne City), Joshua Brillante (Sydney FC), Dimitri Petratos (Newcastle Jets), Josh Risdon (Western Sydney Wanderers), and James Troisi (Melbourne Victory) – are currently in the A-League while Andrew Nabbout, who moved to Japan just a few weeks ago, spent most of the season at Newcastle Jets.
Van Marwijk will convene the 26 in Turkey for a three-week long training camp before decamping to Russia on June 10. The team will play warm up games against the Czech Republic on June 1 and Hungary on June 9, and the Dutchman will name his final 23 on June 3.
“It is always a challenging task to reduce a squad, however this is the nature of professional sport at the highest level,” van Marwijk said in a statement issued by the FFA.
“Overall, I believe we have named a strong and ambitious squad for our training camp in Turkey and friendly against Czech Republic in Austria.”
“I am sure that in training in Antalya, and in our match against the Czech Republic, we will see players pushing to go to a higher level as they compete for a place in the final squad,” he said.
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Michael Lynch, The Age's expert on soccer, has had extensive experience of high level journalism in the UK and Australia. Michael has covered the Socceroos through Asia, Europe and South America in their past three World Cup campaigns. He has also reported on Grands Prix and top class motor sport from Asia and Europe. He has won several national media awards for both sports and industry journalism.
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