Socceroos coach Graham Arnold says he would not have re-signed with the national team if he thought the players had maximised their potential, and he sees only improvement from the young generation of Australian talent coming through.
Speaking to ABC Sport, Arnold looked back at his frustrations at the way the team went out of the World Cup, his belief in the need for more playing time for Australians at home or overseas, the vexed question of promotion and relegation in the A-League and more.
But as he confirmed reports of interest from clubs and countries in the wake of Australia's World Cup run, Arnold said he came to the conclusion he needed to stay.
"I had a couple of nations reach out from the Middle East but ... sitting down and reflecting on it, I just felt that we’ve got much more to give," he said.
"I brought a lot of kids through in that campaign, and the kids really stepped up and the likes of Harry Souttar, Kye Rowles, Rylee McGree, young Garang Kuol and that.
"These kids are only going to get better … if I felt that we got the max out of the boys and that was it, we won’t get any more, I probably would have left.
"But I just feel we’ve got much more to give and the boys coming through are only going to improve and I look forward to the next three-and-a-half years."
The other big news of the week aside from Arnold's new contract was Socceroo Souttar sealing a high-profile transfer from Stoke City in the Championship to Leicester City in the Premier League on deadline day, for an Australian record fee of $26 million.
Arnold said it was great for Australian football that Souttar had made it into the Premier League, saying he was "leading the way" for other young Australian players.
"He [Souttar] reached out to me to let me know, that he was going to do the medical [at Leicester] and everything was done," he said.
"I met [Leicester manager] Brendan Rodgers once or twice when I went to Celtic to visit Tommy Rogic at the time, and Brendan even sent me a text to tell me how excited he was to have signed Harry.
"[He asked] if I could give a couple of comments about Harry and feedback on Harry's personality so it was fantastic to get a text off him."
Arnold was asked for his feelings after Argentina won the World Cup — he said he was "really down and disappointed" after Australia's 2-1 loss to the eventual champions.
"Back here in Australia everyone was saying how well we did. And yes, we obviously did well to get to the last 16, but I just felt that game, especially, we handed them two goals, it wasn't through the brilliance of their players scoring the goal or anything," Arnold said.
"It was two mistakes from us that we got punished on, and if anything we just handed them the game."
Arnold recalled sensing an opportunity in the second half of the knockout game.
"I just felt in the 55th minute they brought [Lisandro] Martinez on as a player at centre-back and they tried to shut up shop.'
"I remember looking at Rene Meulensteen my assistant and saying 'Wow, they've gone to five at the back, Messi's going to play as a second striker, they're running out of legs'.
"Because they played two nights before … we played in an air-conditioned stadium and they played in a non air-conditioned stadium and they were pretty taxed I felt, and I felt we really had a great chance to win that game."
Arnold can't see promotion / relegation for A-League
Asked about promotion and relegation, Arnold said he didn't see it as an option for Australia.
"I think we've got to look at where we're at, as a sporting nation, and there's no relegation in any major sport [in Australia]," he said.
"AFL doesn't have it, rugby league doesn't have it, and it's a bit like America, where they don't have it either, and the MLS over there, they've gone up to about 28 teams.
There have long been calls from Australian football fans to introduce a multi-division system to the A-League with bottom teams going down to a second tier (relegation) and the top teams in the lower divisions replacing them (promotion).
"Maybe if we don't have promotion / relegation we just need many more clubs, and more teams in the A-League to go from 12 clubs up to maybe 16, 18 clubs, you give more opportunities to players and more academies at junior level and more focus on what we're doing," Arnold said.
"You'd love to have promotion / relegation, but the only way you can do that is to have the second division clubs would have to prove that they've got the resources, they've got the money, they've got the stadiums, and that they've got everything that is required to play at the A-League level."
Keeping tabs on Europe's possible Socceroos
Arnold said he was keen to meet up with a trio of young players who have Socceroos potential, including young gun Cristian Volpato, who rejected a call-up for the World Cup in Qatar with the intent of playing senior international football for Italy.
"One thing I want to do in the next six months is get over to Italy and meet him [Volpato] face-to-face," Arnold said.
"I've spoken to the kid obviously over the phone a number of times, but I want to get over there [and meet] face-to-face.
"There's another good kid at Parma, [Alessandro] Circati, also, and young Alexander Robinson at Manchester City.
"So these three kids, they grew up here in Australia, they learned all their football here in Australia, and as I said it's crucial that I get over there face-to-face and have a good chat with [them]."
