Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has escalated his grievances around a lack of support for football from the government, describing his team as “homeless” ahead of the first of back-to-back World Cup qualifiers against Lebanon on Thursday. The match at Commbank Stadium in Sydney is the third fixture in the team’s long qualification pathway towards the expanded 48-team World Cup in North America in 2026. After his side trained this week at the New South Wales Rugby League Centre of Excellence, Arnold said the Socceroos needed a home base. “Have something where we can have a museum, where we can be proud of what Mark Viduka and what Harry Kewell and all these guys did to inspire kids,” he said. The $40m Home of the Matildas opened in Melbourne last year before the Women’s World Cup. Arnold has been campaigning for a similar facility for the men’s national side for more than a year. On Wednesday he said, given the government “loves helping the NRL and the AFL”, the Socceroos’ needs were modest. “An office, a home that we can have forever, not chopping and changing,” he said. “If you don’t have a home, how do you have a culture? We’re homeless.” After Covid interrupted the previous World Cup qualification campaign, the fixture in Parramatta is only the Socceroos’ fifth visit to Sydney in six years. The match against 115th-ranked Lebanon is the first time the team will take the field since its defeat to South Korea in the Asian Cup quarter-finals in February. The side was building steadily into the knockout stages of that tournament but the 2-1 loss in extra-time, thanks to a 96th-minute South Korean equaliser from the penalty spot, evaporated their aspirations in Qatar. Midfielder Riley McGree said the players had tried to see the positives in the outcome. “Obviously, it didn’t go the way we ultimately planned and what we wanted from it, but at the end of the day there’s a lot of things we can learn from,” he said. Captain Mat Ryan said Thursday would be the first step to put that result behind them. “Dwelling on something like that isn’t going to take us to where we want to head to next,” he said. After winning their first two matches of the six-game World Cup qualifying pool stage, the Socceroos are close to booking a place in the next round. A sell-out crowd of about 28,500 is expected on Thursday, including a large contingent of Lebanese fans from western Sydney. Several questions hang over the side and what it will look like in two years – few more significant than the future of 33-year-old spearhead Mitch Duke. The highlight of the striker’s late-blooming career has been his winning header against Tunisia in the 2022 World Cup. But he missed two crucial chances when the Socceroos were leading 1-0 in the Asian Cup quarter-final. After he helped his club Machida Zelvia to promotion to the top division in Japan last season, he has been coming off the bench early in the new season. He said this week he told Arnold, “I’m not looking too far into the future.” “I’m happy to still be one of the experienced boys, even if that means pulling back my role, and not being a starting player.” The return of midfielder Ajdin Hrustic looms as the biggest addition from the squad that went to the Asian Cup. The 27-year-old had been one of Australia’s best in qualifying for the 2022 World Cup but was frozen out at club level after a move to Italian club Hellas Verona. He joined Dutch club Heracles Almelo this year and has rediscovered some of the form that had once made him Australia’s most important source of attack. That reputation is likely to win him minutes this week, especially since winger Craig Goodwin will miss the first match through illness. “It’s great to have him back he brings obviously that X-factor for us,” Arnold said. “It can change games and that’s important.” Arnold flagged he will rotate some players between Thursday’s match and the next fixture on Tuesday in Canberra due to travel and the quick turnaround, but he was focused on securing the six points on offer. A Football Australia spokesperson said they had already sold just under 19,000 tickets for the match in Canberra.