In hindsight, I was a bit critic of Arnie, but one area where he did excel was in man management and proactively courting dual nationals. Popovic seems to be backward in both regards, which concerns me greatly. Let's not forget that we have Souttar and Boyle because Arnie got off his ass and flew to the UK and met with them both to sell his vision for the Socceroos and to convince them to choose Australia. Does anyone now question the passion for the jersey of those players because we had to make that direct approach to them? A quick snapshot from Copilot says:
Graham Arnold used a personal and strategic approach to convince both Martin Boyle and Harry Souttar to play for Australia.
Martin Boyle
Arnold traveled to Edinburgh to meet with Boyle in person. This direct approach, combined with Arnold's vision for the Socceroos, played a significant role in convincing Boyle. Boyle appreciated Arnold's effort and credited him for making the journey to see him. Arnold's pitch highlighted the opportunities and the positive environment within the Australian national team, which ultimately persuaded Boyle to switch allegiances.
Harry Souttar
For Souttar, Arnold emphasized the consistent success of the Socceroos in qualifying for major tournaments, contrasting it with Scotland's less successful record. This pragmatic approach, along with the opportunity to play in World Cups, was appealing to Souttar. Arnold's confidence in Souttar's abilities and the promise of a significant role in the team also helped secure his commitment.
Whilst Totti seemed to convince Volpato otherwise, Arnie also travelled to Italy to watch him play and discuss his role in the Socceroos (
https://www.ftbl.com.au/news/arnie-coup-volpato-ditches-italy-to-join-socceroos-fold-601324) and he also flew to the UK to meet with Alex Robertson to help secure him for the Socceroos (only for bad decisions later on to have seemingly changed things).
Part of Popovic's role, or at the very least, the assistant coaches, should be to be reaching out to dual nationals and travelling to watch them play and meet with them in person. Not just dual nationals, but all players really. But especially dual nationals! Is this happening? Why is Popovic not proactively meeting with Volpato, Robertson, Triantis, Chipperfield, Skoko et al? He can't even pick up the phone to have a conversation with Segecic about his non selection, which seems to be leaving him feeling disillusioned now too. It really isn't that hard, and should be an expectation of the role to be developing relationships with these players and building bridges where we need to. Right now it feels like Popovic is just being stubborn and pig-headed with this ridiculous line of not diminishing the jersey. Let's see how well that goes when Greece pinch Triantis, Croatia pinch Segecic and Italy pinch Volpato. If those countries want those players in their stable, they're going to be moving heaven and earth to act on it to make sure of it, not naively waiting by the phone for the players to reach out and ask to pretty please play for them. The Volpato situation could potentially change pretty quickly if we'd show some initiative, stop sitting on our hands, reach out to the kid, and do everything that we can to convince him that his future is with Australia.
en.m.wikipedia.org
www.abc.net.au
