View: John Mousinho will be furious at international decision involving Portsmouth star
John Mousinho will be seething after Portsmouth star Sammy Silvera was not even included in the Australia matchday squad against China.
The Socceroos won 3-1 in their first match under new coach and former Premier League defender Tony Popovic, played at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday (10 October), with Silvera having travelled Down Under for the game.
However, the on-loan Pompey winger was not even named on the bench by Popovic, rendering his 10,000-mile journey futile.
Australia have one more game in this international break, taking on Japan in Saitama on Tuesday (15 October), with Silvera hoping to add to his five caps.
Portsmouth wanted to keep Sammy Silvera over the break
It’s tricky from a Portsmouth perspective and that of any club when the international break comes round – especially this stage of the season when there are three breaks in the same number of months.
Even more so when you are Mousinho and Pompey, who have three Australians among their first-team squad who are consistently playing World Cup qualifiers on the other side of the globe.
The Blues would have preferred to keep Silvera in England, where he would have featured in the bounce game taking place at the club’s Hilsea training ground to help tick players over and give fringe stars minutes as has been the case during the breaks.
Instead, Silvera has been merely training with Australia and only a 70-minute-plus appearance in Japan would make the trip even slightly worthwhile.
For any Pompey fans equally as frustrated with Popovic’s omission of Silvera after dragging him out to Adelaide, they can look back on one of the most infamous own goals [Gukbap on YouTube] by the former centre-half at Fratton Park while at Crystal Palace in 2004.
In other Portsmouth news, Jay Sadler’s brutal admission after another Pompey Women defeat.
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