How Ajdin Hrustic fell off the radar at Hellas Verona before Heracles rebirth [Video]

There were few Australians flying higher in men’s football than Ajdin Hrustic two years ago. He won the 2021-22 Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt, scoring a penalty in the decisive shootout to become the first Australian to lift a UEFA trophy since Harry Kewell in 2005, and then emerged from the Socceroos’ torturous qualification campaign as arguably the team’s most valuable player, primed to light up the World Cup in Qatar.

Then he did his ankle, and we’ve hardly seen him since.

“It was a tough period, I’m not going to lie,” Hrustic told this masthead. “But everything happens for a reason.”

Hrustic was this week handed his first call-up in almost a year for Australia’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Lebanon in Sydney and Canberra. And boy, have they missed him. The 27-year-old was exactly the kind of creative fulcrum the Socceroos missed at the Asian Cup, but wasn’t …