‘Really poor’: Socceroos coach Tony Popovic takes aim at forgotten prodigy

Socceroos coach Tony Popovic hasn’t held back in his assessment of the standard of Australian players, including a one-time prodigy.

Socceroos coach Tony Popovic is sick of hearing about Daniel Arzani’s “potential”, demanding that the former prodigy, and the rest of Australia’s talent pool, “raise the bar” to be able to compete with Asia’s best nations.

Ahead of Australia’s FIFA World Cup qualifiers in March against Indonesia and China, Popovic has been brutal in his assessment of Melbourne Victory star Arzani, saying his level at a recent Socceroos camp was “really poor” and using him as an example of a player who needed to improve to reach the “elite” level required to play for Australia.

In an honest appraisal about the standard of several players, Popovic also said the likes of whiz-kid Nestory Irankunda, who recently moved on loan to Swiss club Grasshoppers from German giants Bayern Munich, needed to be doing more than just getting game time to ensure they were selected for the national team.

“It needs to be more than just playing some minutes,” the Socceroos boss said.

“Just because someone’s got some minutes at Grasshoppers, for example, that can’t be enough.

“They need to be at an elite level for Grasshoppers, and then they are elite for the Socceroos. That’s pretty much it, in terms of all the players.”

Daniel Arzani’s performance at a recent Socceroos training camp has been savaged by national coach Tony Popovic. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

That includes attacking weapon Arzani, now 26, who played for the Socceroos at the 2018 World Cup as a teenager.

Since then, his career has stagnated. After been signed from Melbourne City by English Premier League giants Manchester City seven years ago, Arzani has had loan spells at four clubs – Celtic (Scotland), Utrecht (Netherlands), AGF (Denmark) and Lommel (Belgium) – before returning to the A-League in 2022 to join Macarthur FC.

After one season with the Bulls, Arzani signed with the Victory, where he played under Popovic in the club’s 2023-24 campaign.

He earnt a Socceroos recall for last June’s games against Bangladesh and Palestine under then national coach Graham Arnold.

Popovic took over from Arnold in September and chose Arzani in his squad for October’s matches against China and Japan.

However, Arzani didn’t play in either match after failing to impress on the training paddock.

Socceroos coach Tony Popovic wants his players to ‘raise the bar’. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

“I know Daniel well. He’s got potential, and we talk about him with potential. I think we’ve been talking about that since he was 18,” Popovic said’

“When he doesn’t play, everyone questions why he doesn’t play, but he needs to raise his level.

“We need goals, we need assists – that’s what Daniel needs to do. Doing one good dribble or one good trick or setting up one goal should not be enough to play for the Socceroos.

“I had him in camp in October. He knows what I think … it wasn’t good enough.

“His level was really poor in training Maybe for him, it’s OK, but it’s not enough.

“Every player needs to raise their level, and if they raise their level, that’s how we want to be.

“We want to be competing with Japan. That’s our goal. We want to be competing with the best.

“Our last two World Cups, we went through the playoffs, but we keep expecting to make the top two (in groups to guarantee World Cup qualification).

“That’s good, but if we expect to come in the top two, then we must raise the level, we must raise the bar,

“We don’t go automatically to all (World) Cups, but that’s something that we should aspire to do. We shouldn’t shy away from that.”

Originally published as ‘Really poor’: Socceroos coach Tony Popovic takes aim at forgotten prodigy