Steeled by twice taking the long road to World Cup qualification, Socceroos veterans Aziz Behich and Milos Degenek hope a different path can deliver a better result than ever.
Behich and Degenek were in the squads for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which Australia reached via the intercontinental play-offs.
But after Behich’s stunning winner against Japan in Perth last year sealed automatic qualification, the Socceroos get to enjoy a different route to June’s tournament in North America.
That includes Tuesday night’s send-off match against Curacao at AAMI Park.
“To be honest, it’s really nice not to have to worry about a playoff,” Behich said.
“It’s nice obviously to just know that you’re already going and you don’t have to worry about another game and then another one after that.
“Obviously last World Cup was different because the timing was … in between the seasons, so you didn’t have that much time to prepare as well leading into that. So this is nice, to actually have time to prepare.
“It’s almost like Russia, where we’ll have a lot of time at the end of the season as well to meet up early, get the group in together, almost like a little mini pre-season.
“That will be a big key to starting the World Cup really well, and going far in the competition.”
Instead of being limited to playoff opponents until March, Australia have been able to play against New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Venezuela, Colombia and Cameroon.
Friendlies against Mexico and a European opponent, expected to be Switzerland, await in the US.
“This one gives us a lot more chance to prepare even more and to have an even more successful World Cup,” Degenek told AAP.
“Just purely based on the fact we have a lot more time to work on things that we need to work on and things that aren’t clicking to make them click.
“It gives the boss a lot more time to prepare, a lot more time to look at people, and obviously, in general, gives us as a group time to bond even more and go to that World Cup in America even more prepared than ever before.”
Behich and Degenek played with Curacao goalkeeper Eloy Room at PSV Eindhoven and Columbus Crew respectively, and are excited for what the World Cup debutants throw at them.
“Getting a challenge like this thrown at the playing group is good because, come World Cup, you don’t know what teams will do, so you need to really adapt at this level just on the spot sometimes,” Behich said.
Socceroos coach Tony Popovic was also intrigued at the prospect of playing Curacao, ranked No.82 in the world.
“It’s exciting to play a different opponent, different style, a real footballing team, they want to play,” he said.
“So they’ll give us different challenges, and I want to see how we can overcome that.”
https://thewest.com.au/sport/soccer/different-route-to-world-cup-has-socceroos-primed-c-22071798
