Australia’s starting XI unclear to Mark Milligan


In much more pleasant weather conditions after the recent heatwave in Melbourne, the session was based around an 11-a-side game played in 15- to 20-minute blocks.

Matthew Spiranovic, Trent Sainsbury, Chris Herd, Jason Davidson, Mile Jedinak, James Troisi, Tommy Oar, Massimo Luongo, Tomi Juric and Robbie Kruse played on a team wearing green bibs, with goalkeepers Mitch Langerak and Eugene Galekovic rotating in and out.

Up against them in red were Mathew Ryan, Alex Wilkinson, Ivan Franjic, Terry Antonis, Aziz Behich, Mark Bresciano, Mark Milligan, Nathan Burns, Matt McKay, Mathew Leckie and Tim Cahill.

Milligan said the media should not read too much into the line-ups from that session five days out from the opening clash with Kuwait.

Honestly I have absolutely no idea [of the starting line-up],” he said.

We”ve been working now for seven days. The main focus has been to get everybody in the best possible shape and everybody on the same fitness level.

As far as I know today and the last few days have been about getting everyone in shape and making sure everyone is available for that first game.

That assessment echoes coach Ange Postecoglou”s view this week that his selection thoughts were very much fluid at this stage.

Sunday”s training session was in conjunction with an official Socceroo fan day.

Socceroo supporters numbered around 2,500 at the last official public session before the team begin final preparations for Kuwait on Friday.

Today was emphasised it was going to be a real workout for us,” the 29-year-old Melbourne Victory midfielder said.

“The last chance we get before we turn our attention to Friday night”s game.”

The fan turnout was bigger than anticipated and showed the level of support for the national team ahead of the Asian Cup.

It”s excellent to see so many fans it”s nice to know we have all this support behind us, Milligan said.

I guess it”s promising signs for a big crowd in at AAMI Park yelling for us.

We”re relying on them [the fans] to get us through as well.

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