Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou wants to showcase Australia's brand of football to the wider world in the friendly against England.
Ange Postecoglou wants his Socceroos to prove they're no longer the underdogs of world football in Friday night's friendly against England.
The sold-out game in Sunderland is a rare opportunity for Australia to square off against a top-10 opponent instead of another Asian foe like lowly-ranked World Cup qualifying opponents Tajikistan or Bangladesh.
Up to 8000 travelling Australians are expected to descend on the Stadium Of Light on Friday evening (Saturday morning AEST) hoping to watch the Asian Cup champions produce a repeat of the last fixture between these sides, a 3-1 Socceroos win in 2003.
And while the fans will be brimming with nostalgia come kickoff, that famous victory hasn't been part of Postecoglou's message to his players this week.
The Socceroos coach is more determined to showcase Australia's brand of football to the wider world.
"I dont wan't to play this underdog crap, I've been over that for a while," Postecoglou said.
"I don't really care what other people think, I've always said that. At the end of the day it's really about us and we want to play our football against a good opponent - whether other people like it or don't like it is pretty irrelevant to be honest.
"Hopefully we get into the space as a national team and as a nation where we don't really care what other people and other nations think of us. Hopefully they don't want to play us in the future."
Postecoglou will use the game to tinker with his squad and formation ahead of a two-game friendly series with Greece back in Australia next month.
But his eyes are looking further down the barrel, with Australia's 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign to resume in September.
"It's a great opportunity tomorrow night to test ourselves and our football and the last thing you want is to get to the end of the 90 minutes and you haven't done that," Postecoglou said on Thursday.
"We want to come off the pitch at the end of the game knowing we've played our brand of football against a quality opponent and tested ourselves, and inched just a little bit further forward in the way we want to play.
"We don't get many windows now where we can play opposition outside our federation. The most important thing is we get ready for what's coming ahead in September, October.
"We've got a tough World Cup qualifying campaign coming up and these games are valuable for us to be ready for that."
