Graham Arnold has thrown his hat in the ring for a coaching job in Major League Soccer as he contemplates his career options if his contract with the Socceroos isn’t renewed after the World Cup.
Arnold’s 4.5-year deal with Football Australia ends with the team’s last kick of the ball in Qatar, and while he is eager to stay on if wanted, the federation is yet to discuss his future with him and his representatives.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold’s future beyond the World Cup in Qatar is uncertain.Credit:Getty
If FA decides the time is right for a new coach of the Socceroos, Arnold will probably look abroad, with the aim of either emulating the success of Ange Postecoglou and Kevin Muscat at club level, or even taking charge of another national team.
“I haven’t decided anything,” Arnold told them Herald and The Age. “I’ll be honest – after the World Cup, I’m going to have a bit of a break for the first time in 4.5 years. I don’t have to think about anything. My future is in my own hands … I can decide what I want to do.
“People have said to me, ‘How do you feel? Do you feel unwanted because the organization haven’t come to you and said, Arnie, we want you to stay?’ I don’t feel that way. At the end of the day, it is what it is. Contract’s over, and I then have a choice for once. You’re not getting tapped on the shoulder.”
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Arnold, 59, a two-time A-League championship winner with Sydney FC and the Central Coast Mariners, has unfinished business overseas. His one and only job outside Australian football ended in ignominious circumstances when, in 2014, he was sacked as coach of J.League side Vegalta Sendai after eight winless games in charge.
Since then, Postecoglou has won trophies in Japan with Yokohama F. Marinos and in Scotland with Celtic, while Muscat – who succeeded Postecoglou at Yokohama last year – is on track to also claim the J.League title this weekend if his side avoids defeat in their final match of the season against Vissel Kobe.
Sources familiar with Arnold’s thinking said he had been encouraged to apply for several jobs recently, including by one intermediary working on behalf of a Major League Soccer club, as well as another national team position, and a club gig in Asia.