Socceroo’s EPL move to break Aussie transfer record for third time in eight months

While Gauci will be sacrificing regular game time at Aston Villa, he will have the opportunity to learn from training with Emiliano Martinez, the Argentinian World Cup-winner who Bosnich rates as the best goalkeeper on the planet.

“Martinez is a game-changer,” said Bosnich, who joined Villa from Sydney United on a free transfer in 1992, and went on to play for them 172 times. “He makes the saves – ie World Cup final, against Australia in the round of 16 – that make the difference. It will be a wonderful chance for him to learn. They’re obviously thinking in terms of having a top back-up, and making sure that they secure the services of one of the top goalkeeping talents, you’d have to say, in the whole of our region. It’s a wonderful investment for Aston Villa and for Joe Gauci himself.”

The recent return of Swedish veteran Robin Olsen from injury means Gauci will be Villa’s third-choice goalkeeper initially, but the expectation is Gauci may be loaned out next season to a club in the Championship, putting him on a runway to eventually break into the first team if he improves enough.

Gauci will remarkably become the second goalkeeper Adelaide has sold to a Premier League club in this transfer window, after 19-year-old Steven Hall signed for Brighton & Hove Albion earlier in January for an undisclosed fee, which Bosnich said was a testament to the work being done by Adelaide’s goalkeeping coach Eugene Galekovic.

And he is not the only Socceroos player to have found a new club – Tilio has returned to Melbourne City on loan from Celtic, it was announced on Thursday morning, while Aziz Behich has left City to play with Cristiano Ronaldo at Saudi club Al-Nassr for the rest of the season in a surprise loan offer he said he couldn’t turn down.

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“It’ll be a great experience,” Behich said. “I’m stoked and really excited and looking forward to getting started once my job’s done here [at the Asian Cup].”

Teammates at Camp Socceroo have begun dialling up the ‘SIUUUUU’ celebrations in tribute to Behich, on the training pitch and elsewhere. “It just seems to be a little bit of an addiction at the moment,” striker Mitch Duke said. “We just banter with it in some of our card games and stuff that we’ve been playing.”

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