Nathan Burns fires way into Socceroos Asian Cup squad

Form striker Nathan Burns is one of seven A-League players named in coach Ange Postecoglou’s final 23-man Socceroos squad for the home Asian Cup campaign.

Capped seven times, 26-year-old Burns virtually demanded a selection recall to the goal-shy Socceroos by bagging 10 goals for Wellington Phoenix to be the leading scorer in the A-League this season.

The other A-Leaguers to make the cut are Terry Antonis, Eugene Galekovic, Tom Juric, Matt McKay, Mark Milligan and Matthew Spiranovic.

The squad, under skipper Mile Jedinak, contains 16 of the 23 players Postecoglou took to the World Cup in Brazil earlier this year.

There were no real surprises as Postecoglou trimmed his provisional squad, though players who could consider themselves unlucky include injured veteran striker Josh Kennedy, World Cup winger Ben Halloran and midfielders Oliver Bozanic and Aaron Mooy.

Those who went to the World Cup but won’t be at the Asian Cup are Bozanic, Halloran, James Holland, Ryan McGowan, Adam Taggart, Dario Vidosic and Bailey Wright.

The squad contains seven players who went to the last Asian Cup in Qatar in 2011 and finished runners-up to Japan: Burns, Tim Cahill, Jedinak, Robbie Kruse, McKay, Tommy Oar and Spiranovic.

Postecoglou is confident his 2015 squad will deliver.

“It’s been almost six months in the making since the Fifa World Cup,” Postecoglou said.

“We’ve had a series of games where there have been some pretty clear objectives, particularly in terms of broadening the pool and seeing whether we could get some better balance in the squad and more depth.

“In the end, I’m pretty pleased with the 23 we’ve ended up with. There’s a good combination of the core of the group that went to the Fifa World Cup. There’s some experience there, but also a sprinkling of guys who will enhance the squad we took to the Fifa World Cup.”

Final 23-man Socceroos squad: Terry Antonis, Aziz Behich, Mark Bresciano, Nathan Burns, Tim Cahill, Jason Davidson, Ivan Franjic, Eugene Galekovic, Chris Herd, Mike Jedinak (capt), Tom Juric, Robbie Kruse, Mitchell Langerak, Matthew Leckie, Massimo Luongo, Matt McKay, Mark Milligan, Tommy Oar, Mat Ryan, Trent Sainsbury, Matthew Spiranovic, James Troisi, Alex Wilkinson.

The Socceroos will assemble in Melbourne for a pre-tournament training camp from Saturday and face Kuwait in the opening match of the tournament at AAMI Park in Melbourne on 9 January.