(Reuters) -Australia coach Graham Arnold is ready to overlook their essential World Cup qualifier towards Vietnam on Thursday after returning a optimistic take a look at for COVID-19, Soccer Australia mentioned.
Arnold has gone into isolation forward of the sport in Melbourne and will likely be changed on the sidelines by his assistant, Rene Meulensteen.
“Arnold — who’s absolutely vaccinated, obtained a booster 10 days in the past, and is asymptomatic — instantly remoted from Socceroos employees after returning the consequence upon his arrival into Melbourne late final week,” the governing physique mentioned in a press release on Sunday.
“Socceroos employees already in Melbourne have additionally been isolating over the previous two days and have since undertaken three rounds of PCR testing.”
Australia are third in Group B of Asia’s World Cup preliminaries. Solely the highest two finishers are assured to advance to the finals in Qatar later this yr.
Saudi Arabia lead the standings with 16 factors, 4 forward of Japan with the Australians an additional level adrift.
After taking up Vietnam on Thursday Australia journey to Muscat to face Oman on Feb. 1.
(Reporting by Michael Church in Hong Kong, extra reporting by Dhruv Munjal in Bengaluru; Enhancing by Peter Rutherford)
Supply: KFGO
