(Transcript from World News Radio)
With less than a month to go before the start of the FIFA World Cup, Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou has unveiled his 30-man preliminary selection for Brazil.
Following a training camp and the Socceroos' farewell match against South Africa on the 26th of May in Sydney, the squad will be trimmed to 27 players.
Postecoglou will announce his final 23-man selection on June the 2nd.
Attila Mosonyi reports.
The 30-man squad contains veterans Tim Cahill, Mark Bresciano, Josh Kennedy and Luke Wilkshire who are all hoping to represent Australia in their third consecutive World Cups.
But it also includes two 21-year old uncapped players, defender Bailey Wright and and striker Ben Halloran, who plays for Fortuna Dusseldorf in Germany.
Wright, from Preston in England's third-tier competition, is a controversial selection considering his arrest in connection with an English spot-fixing investigation last month.
Postecoglou also showed faith in the A-League by selecting ten locally-based players.
It is a young squad with an average age of just over 25.
But the Australian coach is confident the younger players will relish their opportunity.
"Yes there is some inexperience at going to the World Cup. For the majority of these players it will be their first World Cup. But at the same time a great opportunity for some of these younger players to forge their own national team careers."
The squad will next head to a pre-World Cup Camp in Gosford, on the New South Wales central coast, then Sydney before the Socceroos final match on home soil against South Africa on the 26th of May in Sydney.
The team will fly to Brazil three days later to face defending Champion Spain, 2010 World Cup runner-up the Netherlands and South American side Chile.
Postecoglou admits it will be a tough ask to progress from the group but he expects his side to be competitive.
"We are going on the biggest stage on the world, facing absolutely the best in the world. The footballing public deserves to dream about its national team and want the best for its national team. And then our responsibility is, as I said, to excite them and to give them maybe a glimpse of the future and who knows? Maybe taking them on a little bit of a wild ride through here where the unexpected happens."
Postecoglou will cut three players from the squad the day after Australia's friendly against South Africa with the final 23-man squad to be named in Brazil on June the 2nd.
Socceroos defender Mark Milligan says everybody must work hard to make the final cut.
"It's a fresh slate for everyone who has been named in this 30 and we need to grasp as quickly as possible what's expected from us, firstly as individuals in our position and then as a team. We need to fit into that system we need to work extremely hard over th next couple of weeks to make sure that first and foremost we are on the plane to Brazil."
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