Tony Popovic names uncapped Ante Suto, Lucas Herrington and Deni Juric, Cristian Volpato omitted

Updated March 19, 2026 — 3:43pm,first published 1:32pm

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Save this article for later

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.

Socceroos coach Tony Popovic has launched a passionate defence of his management of Adrian Segecic, vowing he will never make promises to young players about game time or bow to pressure to stop them defecting to another country.

Popovic unveiled a 26-player squad on Thursday for Australia’s upcoming friendlies against Cameroon and Curacao – their last fixtures on home soil before the World Cup in June – but the biggest talking point was a player who wasn’t in it, and now probably never will be.

Segecic, a former Sydney FC academy product who plays for Portsmouth in the English Championship, had his request to switch his international allegiance from Australia to Croatia approved over the weekend by FIFA.

Popovic said he respected Segecic’s decision and wished him well, as he did with midfielder Nectarios Triantis, another long-term prospect who pledged himself to Greece last year.

Advertisement

Segecic, 21, is considered one of the best talents to have emerged from Australia in recent years. He represented Australia at three different junior age levels and earned a senior call-up from Popovic with the Socceroos last year, although he didn’t get on the field.

These days, an increasing number of young players are eligible for multiple nations, owing to their family heritage, and many try to use it as leverage. Before making his debut for Australia, Nestory Irankunda teased the possibility of playing for Burundi or Tanzania; likewise, Segecic has long kept the door ajar to representing Croatia, but said as recently as November that it would “make more sense” to play for Australia at the World Cup, which he described as a “dream” of his.

But Segecic’s head has been turned by a lobbying campaign by the Croatian Football Federation, and though he faces a long road to get into their stacked senior team, he is expected to begin in their national under-21s program, which is coached by former Bayern Munich star Ivica Olić.

Popovic said in his very first press conference as Socceroos coach that he would never make a “sales pitch” to a player to pick Australia over another nation, an old-school approach he believes protects the sanctity of the national shirt. But the uncomfortable truth is that is exactly what most other countries are doing - including Croatia.

Advertisement

Whatever the case, Popovic insisted there was no more he could have done to convince Segecic, short of crossing one of his red lines.

“If you’re getting called up for Australia through the junior levels, then you get called up by the Socceroos, shouldn’t that be enough that you’re wanted?” he said.

SOCCEROOS SQUAD FOR MARCH WINDOW

Goalkeepers: Patrick Beach, Paul Izzo, Mathew Ryan

Defenders: Aziz Behich, Jordan Bos, Cameron Burgess, Alessandro Circati, Milos Degenek, Jason Geria, Fran Karacic, Lucas Herrington, Kai Trewin

Midfielders: Ajdin Hrustic, Connor Metcalfe, Riley McGree, Aiden O’Neill, Alexander Robertson, Paul Okon-Engstler, Patrick Yazbek, Jacob Italiano

Forwards: Martin Boyle, Nestory Irankunda, Awer Mabil, Nishan Velupillay, Deni Juric, Ante Suto

“Should I promise a player at 20 or 21 that he has to play? We’ve got young players in this squad now – do I promise him that they’re going to play? If they don’t, I have to fear that he’ll leave?

“Maybe times have changed. But I know when I was 20 or 21, when I got called on the national team, if I didn’t play, all I thought about was, ‘OK, I love that environment, I want to play for Australia, and I’ll keep fighting and hope one day I get selected by the coach.’ I wouldn’t walk out and make a phone call and say, who else wants me?

Advertisement

“That’s what I mean by selling the shirt. I don’t think we’ve done anything to not indicate to young players that you can play for Australia. You can see by this squad, you can see by the last squads that we’ve selected ... young players have a great opportunity with the Socceroos, that’s clear. But I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.

“Any player that comes and says, if I don’t play, I’m out, should I play that player? Even though maybe at that moment, whether it’s technically, tactically, or a [different] player’s maybe ahead physically at that moment – so he shouldn’t play because someone’s told me he’ll leave?”

The Socceroos might have lost one player to Croatia but have at least got another back: Ante Suto, a 25-year-old striker who Popovic has been keeping an eye on for some time, having been impressed with his form since joining Scottish club Hibernian in January.

Like Harry Souttar, Martin Boyle and Fran Karacic before him, Suto’s first trip to Australia will be as a national team player.

Advertisement

“He showed the desire to play for Australia and his performances have shown that he deserves to be here,” Popovic said.

Suto is one of three uncapped players in Popovic’s squad, along with ex-Brisbane Roar sensation Lucas Herrington and Poland-based Deni Juric, the younger brother of former Socceroos frontman Tomi.

Herrington, 18, has starred at centre-back for Colorado Rapids since his January transfer to the Major League Soccer club, and was selected with an eye on the present, not the future, Popovic said. Juric, meanwhile, was called up to a previous camp but had to withdraw due to injury; with Mohamed Toure currently sidelined, the Socceroos are using this March window to examine their other options up front.

Other surprises include the absence of midfielder Jackson Irvine, who Popovic left out to avoid disrupting his management of a foot injury he is playing through in Germany, and a recall for winger Awer Mabil, who has not been named in a Socceroos squad for more than 18 months.

Advertisement

There is no room for Cristian Volpato, another dual-national who recently met with Popovic to discuss playing for Australia over Italy. He is yet to officially file for a change of international allegiance on FIFA’s official platforms.

“We’ve left the door open for him,” Popovic said.

“We haven’t called him to force him to come and play for us, but we did have a discussion with him because he indicated he was open to the idea. I think we did that well, we did it very professionally, respectfully, and we’re not going to be calling him now, begging him to play for Australia, but certainly if he indicates that he wants to play ... he’s a talented young player, we’d love to have him.”

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

More:

Australian soccer

Socceroos

Tony Popovic

Vince Rugari is a sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.

Click here to read article