PASADENA, California - As an intense pre-FIFA World Cup training camp concludes, the enormity of the looming tournament is being increasingly felt, with Socceroos coach Tony Popovic telling ESPN it truly started to sink in for him when he personally delivered the news to players that they wouldn't be part of his final squad.
Coming to the end of the near month-long camp in the Florida city of Sarasota, eight players were informed on Monday that they would not be a part of the final 26-strong unit for the World Cup; another four will receive the same news before the deadline to submit official squads to FIFA on June 1, up from three after the late addition of Cristian Volpato after his sensational switch of allegiance from Italy to Australia.
Just how coaches perform the thankless task of informing players that they've not been selected has become an unexpected talking point in recent days, with England manager Thomas Tuchel personally calling players to give them the good or bad news before he announced it, and United States boss Mauricio Pochettino defending himself from criticism levelled at a decision to inform absent players via email.
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Popovic, for his part, held individual meetings with the players who were sent home from Sarasota, and plans to do the same with the further three players who will return home after the friendly against Mexico in the Rose Bowl on Saturday. It's something he told ESPN he hadn't been looking forward to doing, but knew needed to be done, with the task bringing the scale of the World Cup just that little bit further into focus.
"Now that we're planning travel, and the Mexico game, I think that will really highlight what we're here for, so it's starting to feel real now," he told ESPN. "But on a personal level, it felt real having to tell some players that they won't be remaining. That was something that I didn't look forward to. I didn't want to do it, and I knew when we did this camp that that will be a situation that I needed to face.
"The easier way was to do it differently, to just wait for a few weeks [without staging a camp], take a chance on how [players'] fitness is, and just pick a squad. [Instead] we had to disappoint some boys; obviously, they won't see the growth they've made to get to this point and then just miss out, because everyone wants to go to a World Cup.
"That wasn't an easy three or four hours to digest. But, I've said this to a few of the staff, you feel sadness in having to do it, relief that you've done it, but also clarity; so I had all those emotions as you're talking to the players. Clear that the right thing was done, but not enjoying the process of doing it.
"I think that was the first time I really felt like 'okay, we're at a World Cup' when I saw the players face-to-face. Unfortunately, I'll have to do that again in a few days, which will be tough. But also the positive part of that is that once the squad is decided, well, that's the group that's going to the World Cup."
Spending up to a month with some of the squad in Florida, gleaning an insight into the character and motivation of the players has been one of the major benefits that Popovic and his staff have taken from pre-camp, especially given the continued close proximity they'll be living in during the World Cup, as well as the tests of character that accompany such a grand stage.
"We need real characters, real personalities as players on the pitch," Popovic told ESPN. "But you learn a lot about whether they have that off the pitch as well. Every player is different.
"They need to bring their own personality and their own way of playing and to be themselves off the pitch as well. That's what makes a great team, that you have all these different attributes on and off the park.
"We're learning a lot about the boys off the field, trying to understand a bit more about their journey, about their family life, and what drives them, or what's brought them to this point.
"Those characteristics, they're important in the World Cup because there will be no greater test. And when you're going through adversity, you want players [who] actually look at that situation and want to face it head-on, and are happy to face it head-on.
"We've got a good mix. The youngsters don't have that experience, but they have that natural exuberance, no fear, and that's also beautiful to see. We need to make sure that those boys who are selected, that's taken onto the field, and that they don't have that anxiety of what they're playing for -- they just be themselves and contribute, obviously, to the team in what's required."
The Socceroos flew into Los Angeles on Thursday for their clash with Mexico, with organisers announcing that a sell-out crowd of 75,000 supporters would pack out the iconic Rose Bowl for the fixture.
The squad will then relocate to their base camp in Oakland for the World Cup proper, with the 26-players in the squad likely to be settled on by the coaching staff in the hours after the Mexico clash and announced the following day.
