Socceroos always believed, says Sainsbury

Published on: 16 November 2017

Sydney: They may have had to do it the hard way, but Australian defender Trent Sainsbury says the team never stopped believing that they would qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2018 Russia.

After 22 matches, that began back in 2015 in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, Australia can now low claim to having the longest qualifying campaign of any team to have successfully qualified for the FIFA World Cup after overcoming Honduras 3-1 at Stadium Australia on Wednesday night.

“We hold the record now for the most games to qualify for the World Cup, so that’s a bit special in itself,” Sainsbury said after the match.

"At Russia 2018, everyone’s going to be behind us and we’re going to go out there with no fear of any team that we come across because that’s the way we’ve gone against every single team we’ve come up against.

“We’ve had a lot of ups and downs but at the same time this team have never stopped believing.”

Sainsbury missed the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil with a knee injury, but with another qualification now secured, the Jiangsu FC defender is eagerly anticipating the prospect of a first FIFA World Cup finals appearance.

“There’s a lot of relief in there,” he said.

“A lot of happiness, I’m not going to lie. Last time I was this happy I think I proposed to my missus and she said yes.

"It’s been a hell of a journey, I’ve made a lot of friends along the way and it’s been a hell of a ride with a brilliant family.”

And as Sainsbury further explained, the feeling in the Socceroos camp is of one big family, with manager Ange Postecoglou as the father figure.

And while both Postecoglou and the team have come under intense scrutiny in the Australian media, Sainsbury claimed it had no impact on the side at all.

"From the inside, it’s been really tranquil, it’s been really peaceful,” he said.

“We know what we have to do, we know our responsibility and we go out and we do our job. Ange is the one that takes all the flack from the media and he’s our first line of defence in terms of keeping us out of harms way.

"So he’s going to take a lot of stick, the same way when he started this job four years ago and everyone got behind that.

He wants to be an aggressive team, an offensive team, he doesn’t want to be the team that sit back and take punishment for 90 minutes.

“He wants to get at the opposition and it feels really bloody good to be a part of that.”

 

Photos: Lagardère Sports, AFP

Source: the-afc.com

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