Socceroos manager reflects on the sacrifices and tough times during Covid that put the team on an unlikely path to World Cup last-16 meeting with Argentina
Graham Arnold lived out of a suitcase for seven months during 2021. World Cup qualifiers had resumed after a lengthy Covid-enforced hiatus, but Australia’s strict border restrictions made it next to impossible to host home games. Opponents were not willing to complete the 14 days of hotel quarantine. Neither were some of his own overseas-based players, and even those who were faced resistance from their clubs.
So Arnold left home bound for various parts of Asia, navigating a labyrinth of fixtures across the world’s largest continent when few international flights were running and border restrictions varied. The 59-year-old stayed in Dubai for some locked-down periods, and regularly oversaw matches on the back of only one full training session with a squad that was regularly changing.
