Following a devastating 4-1 demolition job at the hands of the reigning FIFA World Cup Champions, Graham Arnold says his his Socceroos are ready to 'get on it with it.'
"When you play against that type of opposition, it is a game of millimetres and if you make a small mistake it turns into a big mistake," Arnold told SBS.
"Overall we focus more on what we did well [against France], and that was obviously the first 30 minutes. We’ve got to do that for 90 [minutes].
"After we got [from the game against France] we had an honest conversation… I grabbed the boys straight away. Of course, they were down.
"We spoke honestly about the lessons we learned from it, and what it takes to be those types of players. What’s important now is we go forward and move on.
"Going into Tunisia, we’ll go in with a lot of belief and we’ll make sure that we’re on the front foot. There will probably be 40,000 Tunisians - the atmosphere is going to be electric - and [it’ll] be another exciting moment for everyone."
The Socceroos face Tunisia on Saturday at 9pm (AEDT) in their second match of the 2022 World Cup, an encounter that could be Australia's make-or-break moment in the tournament. A second straight defeat will all end the Aussies' hopes of progressing to the knock-out stage.
Arnold expects the African side to challenge the Socceroos, telling SBS that changes at the back and to who is in the frame are being considered.
"It's something that we're thinking about," said Arnold.
"The size of the players at the tournament has been surprising. I’m not saying it’s been surprising to me but it’s probably surprising to a lot of other people that you know, a player of Harry Souttar’s size… we’ve only got one of them and the other nations have got six or seven. We’ve got to make sure that we keep them out of our penalty box more, and then we can deal with that.”
Despite the challenge ahead, Arnold rejects the notion that this next match against Tunisia could be his biggest challenge as a coach to date.
"No, not at all," he said. "I’m here for the players and the sport, and I just truly believe in these boys. We’ve got two games and as I said to the boys yesterday, we’ve had the best friendly match we could have, and that was against France.
"I know that sounds crazy, but last time we played UAE, we played Peru, and we played Jordan before that. And we haven’t been able to have a friendly match before this because of the short preparation, and there’s no better friendly to have and get punished for your mistakes than playing against the World Champions.
"Now we’ve got two games in front of us, two games that we have to win, and so it’s all about going in with that mentality and being on the front foot going forward. We’re going to make sure that we give it everything we’ve got."
How to watch Socceroos v Tunisia LIVE and FREE on SBS
Saturday, November 26
Group D - Tunisia v Australia
7:30pm - 11:30pm (AEDT) - kickoff at 09.00pm
LIVE on SBS and SBS On Demand
Catch up on France v Australia the way you want with the full replay and 3, 10 and 25 minute highlights all available on the SBS On Demand Match Hub.
