The Socceroos’ preparations for next year’s FIFA World Cup step up a notch on Wednesday in New York when they face a Colombia team that could include Bayern Munich star Luis Diaz.
Ranked No.13 in the world, the Colombians are expected to provide Australia with its toughest test of coach Tony Popovic’s tenure.
Former Liverpool winger Diaz, who moved to Bayern Munich in the off-season, is likely to be a star performer at the World Cup, with Popovic hopeful that his team is exposed to such a player on Wednesday.
“We will be against the best players in the world come the World Cup, and when you look at where he (Diaz) has come from, where he’s played at Liverpool, Bayern Munich, (and) outstanding for Colombia … that’s what’s coming in June, so we can expose ourselves to that now,” the Socceroos boss said.
“We know his strengths, (and) we know that it’s a player with two or three others in their squad that are key to them.
“We have to try to maybe stop the service that gets to him in the areas that he likes.
“He’s very strong in transition. His best moments are when actually they’re defending deep and they play him a ball and then he’s one-on-one with the defender.
“We’ve got to try and avoid those moments of giving the ball away in areas that can hurt us. It’s a great test, great challenge, and I’ll make sure the players are looking forward to it.”
The Socceroos are backing up arguably from their worst performance under Popovic, a 1-0 weekend loss to a Venezuela team 25 places lower than Australia in the world rankings.
Popovic said he had “no regrets” about fielding a starting side that had three debutants – goalkeeper Patrick Beach, defender Kai Trewin and midfielder Paul Okon-Engstler – with a fourth, forward Al Hassan Toure, making his debut off the bench.
“Probably the best part of the game was just debuting the youngsters and trying to give Mo (Toure) and Nestor (Irankunda) some more international experience,” he said.
“Probably, with each camp and each game, I’ve always tried a new player or two. In this game, we probably played a lot of them at the same time and that really disrupted our structure and that was a little bit disjointed … so there was a little bit of confusion.
“That was my choice to expose them. I don’t regret doing that. I’m happy we did that. We learnt a lot from the game.
“I want to win every game as a coach, so I’m not happy we lost the last match, but I’ve got to accept that and that responsibility that comes with the result.
“I’ll put a team out there that I believe can get a result against Colombia and perform better than against Venezuela.”
