Socceroos midfielder Mark Bresciano has declared himself fit for Australia’s World Cup opener against Chile on Saturday. Bresciano has been struggling with a back complaint for the past month and only played 30 minutes in the Socceroos’ friendly against Croatia at the weekend.
But the 34-year-old told Newscorp he would be right to start against Chile if required by coach Ange Postecoglou. “I’m okay. I’m right to go,” he said. “If you want to talk about the injury, it’s basically pain. If I can tolerate the pain, then I’m okay, and it’s got to a stage where I can tolerate it, so I’m okay.
“I’ve had this injury before and bounced back good. It’s not something impossible to do. Hopefully I can start, and hopefully stay on for 90 minutes.”
In a young squad lacking experience, Bresciano’s presence will be a massive boost for Australia, which has been ranked the worst side of the 32 teams competing at Brazil.
Attending his third World Cup, Bresciano said the Socceroos reaped a lot of confidence from their competitive 1-0 loss to Croatia. “It was very important for us as players to know that against a very strong nation like Croatia we could have got a better result,” he said.
“Knowing that has built our confidence, which is important leading up to the first World Cup game. But it will be different against Chile. They play differently from Croatia. You can see individually their players are very technical, very quick, very sharp. Our idea is that they’re going to be trying to press us and be very quick on the counter.”
As well as Chile, Australia shares Group B with reigning champion Spain and 2010 runners up the Netherlands.
