A Pointless Friendly

THE Socceroos’ upcoming friendly against Singapore seems strange at best in light of the 17-man squad announced today.

The side consists only of A-League players, and of those, all but three are Under-23 players.

Clearly the likes of Nigel Boogard and Nikita Rukavytsya stand no chance of playing in the World Cup qualifiers, so why choose them? Yet the side is without important names such as Joel Griffiths, Alex Brosque, Roddy Vargas or John Aloisi.
Also missing out are some of the European based players with more availability such as Michael Thwaite, James Troisi, Jacob Burns and Adrian Leijer.

It leaves the question, if you’re going to play an under-23s side, why play it as an international fixture under the senior coach’s guidance?

Either Pim Verbeek treats these warm up games seriously or risks a walloping in the heady heights of Kunming.

Australia should not be complacent about their progress to the next round just because of the easy win over Qatar. Once again they look set for little more than a 24-hour camp together, but this time against a far better prepared opponent.

I also wonder how happy Ernie Merrick and Aurelio Vidmar are about letting their players travel overseas between vital ACL games with a short turnaround.

The FFA also appear to have made a slip-up by inadvertently announcing Ruben Zadkovich’s departure from Sydney FC. The FFA has queried his club status, implying he could be the first casualty of the post-Aloisi salary cap squeeze in a media release issued today.

As one of the most under-rated youngsters in the comp, he may represent a bargain.

SOCCEROOS SQUAD TO PLAY SINGAPORE

Nigel Boogard (Central Coast Mariners), Leigh Broxham (Melbourne Victory), Nathan Burns (Adelaide United), Billy Celeski (Melbourne Victory), Ante Covic (Newcastle Jets), Bruce Djite (Adelaide United), Tarek Elrich (Newcastle Jets), Adam Griffiths (Newcastle Jets), James Holland (Newcastle Jets), Mile Jedinak (Central Coast Mariners), Jade North (Newcastle Jets), Nikita Rukavytsya (Perth Glory), Archie Thompson (Melbourne Victory), Nikolai Topor-Stanley (Perth Glory), Tando Velaphi (Perth Glory), Ruben Zadkovich (TBC), Michael Zullo (Queensland Roar)