Australians Angry After Footballer Chooses Croatia: ‘He Turned His Back on Us’

Adrian Segečić’s decision to trade Australia for Croatia has caused anger in Australia, where media outlets wrote that the footballer “turned his back on us.” The 22-year-old winger has since continued to rise at club level and has become one of the more intriguing new prospects in Croatian football.

Segečić joined Portsmouth’s new season as one of the club’s important attacking players. He started all four of the team’s league matches so far and scored in the victory over Lincoln City. In the previous Championship season, he scored 11 goals and provided four assists in 38 appearances, form that put him on the radar of Zlatko Dalić.

The former Croatia coach gave Segečić a preliminary call-up for the senior national team in May. Within a few months, the player had moved from having no senior appearances for his new country to being viewed as a potential candidate for Croatia’s strongest selection.

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He turned his back on us.

Before choosing Croatia, Segečić followed almost the entire Australian national-team pathway, representing the country from the under-17 to the under-23 level. Australia senior coach Tony Popović first invited him to a Socceroos camp in September last year, but Segečić did not play against New Zealand and was not called up again afterward.

He made the switch while Australia was preparing its squad for the World Cup. Popović, who had included Segečić in the senior squad but did not give him a debut, said the player might have handled the situation differently. “If I had received a call-up at 20 and had not played, I would only have thought about how much I loved being in that environment. I wanted to play for Australia, fight and hope for an opportunity. I would not simply leave and say, ‘Call me and see who else wants me,’” Popović said.

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If I had received a call-up at 20 and had not played, I would only have thought about how much I loved being in that environment. I wanted to play for Australia, fight and hope for an opportunity. I would not simply leave and say, ‘Call me and see who else wants me.’