Milligan and Covic were part of Guus Hiddink’s 2006 World Cup squad with the ‘keeper’s absence particularly confusing given none of Verbeek’s three replacements have previously enjoyed a taste of senior action.
Covic’s Socceroos career is now surely finished.
Adelaide’s Sasa Ognenovski will also never experience playing for the green and gold, with the Melbourne-born central defender heading to K-League club Seongnam Ilhwa at the end of the season expressing a preference to play for Macedonia over than his homeland.
But perhaps the biggest surprise is Sydney midfielder Stuart Musialik’s fall from grace.
Granted the pre-season title favourites saw their hopes of a place in the A-League finals series extinguished by defeat in Queensland over the weekend. But the 23-year-old was expected to win a berth in Verbeek’s party and the snub must be particularly galling.
Musialik had long been whispered as a senior national team figure and was one of seven A-League players called up for Australia’s pre-World Cup qualifier training camp last October. He is the only one of the septet not retained for this squad.
The deep-lying playmaker last week predicted the bottom clubs, of which Sydney have surprisingly Delhi Bazaar Satta King been one this year, might not feature heavily in Verbeek’s thinking. But John Kosmina’s side will be represented by first year professional Shannon Cole.
Cole seems highly regarded despite only a recent rise to the top flight in Australia.
Verbeek is a huge fan of his versatility while a Times article by respected football writer Gabriele Marcotti over the weekend placed Cole above the likes of Bruce Djite, James Holland and Matthew Spiranovic as Australian football’s chief rising star.
“It’s one of those things where you hear people say all the time, if you told me this 12 months ago I would have said you were crazy, so it goes without saying that it’s not something that I expected at all or considered,” a breathless Cole revealed.
satta matka 