“He has to work hard. If he wants to be in the Socceroos, all he can do is control his part: that’s training well, being the leader, being the captain on and off the field. Then it’s down to my choice and my selection.
“I didn’t expect anything different than what I’ve seen from a seasoned professional that’s had a great career – 96 caps, I believe. You don’t get to that without being a top player and a top professional. The way he’s conducted himself is no surprise to me.”
Socceroos coach Tony Popovic.Credit: Getty Images
Gauci, meanwhile, is reportedly set for a loan move away from Aston Villa for the remainder of the season – and if he also becomes a No.1 goalkeeper elsewhere, that will give Popovic at least three good options in the position, along with Paul Izzo at Danish club Randers.
As for the season-ending injury suffered by defensive leader Harry Souttar, Popovic was a little more frank, albeit still somewhat optimistic.
He described the 26-year-old, who has starred for Sheffield United this season in their bid for automatic promotion to the English Premier League, as an almost irreplaceable player.
Souttar has played in the centre of a back three, and with Parma young gun Alessandro Circati recovering from an ACL injury, it leaves the Socceroos short on defensive options – although Popovic suggested that Ipswich Town’s Cameron Burgess and Sydney FC’s Hayden Matthews, who is set for an imminent transfer to English second-tier side Portsmouth, as possible candidates. The deal for 20-year-old Matthews will net the A-League side up to $2.36 million, according to reports.
Harry Souttar is on the Socceroos long-term injury list.Credit: Getty Images
“Like for like, you don’t replace a Harry, because I feel his attributes are a bit unique to what we have at the moment,” he said.
“We don’t have many players, or any players, like Harry. We need to find a player that gives us that stability and the middle of that back three that can do what Harry was doing.
“We’re a little bit open-minded in who that could be or how that looks. We feel that maybe there’s another Jason Geria out there … it looked like he’d been playing for the Socceroos for years.”
The four-month gap between World Cup qualifiers has given Popovic his first real chance to breathe since being parachuted into the job in late September, replacing Graham Arnold after he ended his six-year reign as Socceroos boss.
“We’ve got all the staff here at the moment for this week, where we’re doing a lot of reviews in terms of the football side, and hoping just not to get any phone calls on new injuries,” he said. “That’s something that I’m learning: that you don’t want to see the physio on the line often.”
Unfortunately, it has been far more often than he would have preferred.
Besides Souttar and Circati, there are several others who will be facing a race against time to be fit for the crucial qualifier in Sydney against Indonesia on March 20 and the trip to China five days later.
Striker Kusini Yengi has been sidelined at Portsmouth since picking up a knee injury on Socceroos duty, while one of his main competitors for that position, Motherwell’s Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, is struggling with a recurring calf injury.
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Then there’s Connor Metcalfe, one of the few Aussies featuring regularly in one of Europe’s top five leagues for FC St. Pauli in Germany – or at least he was until October when he went down with a groin injury.
“That’s an ongoing one, unfortunately, with his groin … that just seems to be hanging around a little bit too long,” Popovic said.
“We’ve actually had some of our people over there with him as well, working with the club to see if there’s any way that we can assist in his rehabilitation. He’s been running also the last couple of weeks, tells us he’s feeling a lot better, but he hasn’t played for a few months now, so it’ll be a tight one for him to be available in March.”
