Rising Roma starlet Cristian Volpato has turned down a chance to join Australia national team at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The World Cup is a dream tournament for every football player. Staged after every four years, footballers usually want to have a taste before the twilight of their football career.
Some countries have released their 2022 World Cup squad. It is jubilations for those included in the list, while those left out suffer disappointment.
Meanwhile, Roma youngster Cristian Volpato shocked pundits after he turned down a World Cup chance on a platter.
Head coach of Australia’s national team, Graham Arnold, had reportedly approach Cristian Volpato since the World Cup qualifiers for a chance to play for Australia, but he had refused.
Speaking on Fox Sports, Arnold said he had told Volpato he was part of the squad, but he had said he ”wanted to go and think about and speak to people who helped guide his career.”
Arnold added thet after a while, he came back and said he didn’t want to play for Australia at the World Cup, declining the offer.
Arnold said he continued to press and try to convince him to join the squad “up till 11 pm on Monday,” but he still declined the offer.
Meanwhile, Cristian Volpato has come out publicly to explain why he rejected the offer by Graham Arnold.
Taking to his Instagram handle, he said he is “just at the start of his career” and has to be “totally focused on that process at Roma.”
“I’ve seen lots of speculation about decisions I have supposedly taken at international level: the truth is I am just at the start of my professional career and I am totally focused on continuing that process at Roma,” the attacking midfielder posted on Wednesday.
Who is Cristian Volpato?
Cristian Volpato, born on 15 November 2003 in Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia, is an 18-year-old professional football star who plays as central midfielder for AS Roma of Italy in the Serie A.
Cristian Volpato started his football career in 2013, at 10, playing for Sydney United youth.
He has played for various youth teams before breaking through to his first senior appearance.
Volpato has played for Sydney FC youth ( 2016 to 2018), Western Sydney Wanderers, (2018 to 2020), and AS Roma youth (2020 to 2022).
Cristian Volpato made his first senior appearance in 2021, playing for AS Roma’s first team. He has made 5 appearances and has scored 2 goals so far.
Cristian Volapato is yet to make any senior appearance in international football.
But he has played for the Italy U19 and U20 levels, making a total of 7 appearances at both levels, scoring 3 goals.
Playing Style
Cristian Volpato can play the role of a winger and deep-lying midfielder. In his first year at AS Roma, Totti was reportedly his mentor and has chiseled the youngster to his style of play.
Despite turning down Graham Arnold’s offer, the Australia national team manager is still hopeful that Volpato will play for Australia in the future.
After spells with Italy youth teams, it is pretty clear that Volpato wants to play for Italy, but Italy did not qualify for the World Cup.
If they had qualified, the likelihood of Cristian Volpato making that squad would have been very low, given crops of established national team players in the national team.
