Australian football player with Romanian roots gets called to Graham Arnold’s final 26-man squad for FIFA World Cup

Australian gaffer Graham Arnold has finally named the 26 selected players to represent the Socceroo at the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. The team includes Ajdin Hrustic, a creative number-10 attacking midfielder with Bosnian and Romanian background.

A man of many cultural roots, Hrustic was born in Victoria, to a family of a Bosnian father and a Romanian mother who flew from the war-torn country to Australia in 1995, making him eligible to play for both Balkan countries. He was overlooked by the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) and was approached by the Bosnian FA, but later chose to stay with the green-and-gold.

“While I was at Schalke, the Bosnian federation expressed interest in me. However, since then there has not been a great deal of attention from either Bosnia or Romania,” he told Australian football publication The Corner Flag in 2017.

The 26-year-old deadly set piece taker was a part of Eintracht Frankfurt’s squad that defied the odds and won the UEFA Europa League last season, beating the likes of Real Betis, FC Barcelona, West Ham, and Rangers, before transferring to Italian outfit Hellas Verona in a hectic deadline-day transfer in the summer.

He made his first appearance with the Socceroo in 2017 as a substitute in a 4-0 loss against Brazil and has been a regular since then, amassing a total of 19 international caps and 3 goals – one of them is his debut goal against Kuwait in a 2022 World Cup qualifying match last year.

Hrustic will be joined by his Australian compatriots: Matthew Ryan (Copenhagen), Aaron Mooy (Celtic), Jackson Irvine (St. Pauli), Matthew Leckie (Melbourne City), Fran Karačić (Brescia), and more.

(Photo source: Australian Football Federation’s website)