Graham Arnold left out of the World Cup his son-in-law, defender Trent Sainsbury who also defends the colors of the Qatari club Al-Wakrah. In this way, the Australian DT shows that his professional criteria is above any family connection and that his priority is to get the results for the Australian Selected forward.
However, the coach assured that it was a complicated decision to leave his daughter’s husband out of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. “The Socceroos” make their World Cup debut against defending champions France on Tuesday, November 22. “It was a really difficult decision“, pointed out the strategist, while he assured that he had prioritized the collective operation over the individual in his call.
Trent Sainsbury’s experience wasn’t enough for his father-in-law
As noted above, Sainsbury plays for Al-Wakrah in Qatar, which would make one think that the experienced Australian footballer knows the playground they will be stepping on. But this is not all, The husband of Graham Arnold’s daughter has had experience at PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Inter Milan in Serie A and Maccabi Haifa in Israel.
However, this experience was not enough for his father-in-law who decided to leave Trent Sainsbury aside. It should be noted that the 30-year-old footballer has played 54 international matches defending the colors of the Australian National Team.
Other absences and players taken into account
Graham Arnold, in addition to having left out his son-in-law, also chose not to take Tom Rogic, from West Brom, a footballer who has been capped by Australia 53 times and that he withdrew from the last qualifying round due to personal reasons.
But one that does appear in the call is the young man of only 18 years of age, Garang Kuol, an Australian pearl who has recently been acquired by Newcastle and that he will join the discipline of this team in January 2023, coming from the Central Coast Mariners. It should be noted that he only has one international match and it was more decisive than the 54 of the coach’s son-in-law.