Socceroos won’t be drawn into fight against Syria in round 2, says Milos Degenek
MILOS Degenek says the Socceroos will concentrate on playing football rather than get involved in Syria’s trickery in Tuesday night’s must-win clash at ANZ Stadium.
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MILOS Degenek says the Socceroos will concentrate on playing football rather than get involved in Syria’s trickery in Tuesday night’s must-win clash at ANZ Stadium.
The Socceroos chartered a plane back to Sydney immediately following Thursday night’s 1-1 draw in Malaysia and arrived home with plenty of time for recovery.
After being undone by the most dubious of penalty calls in Melaka, Degenek says the players know exactly what to expect from their opponents.
“They’re physical and, as you saw at the start of the game, they tried to play little games by going down and were trying to time waste straight away, before the game even started,” he said. “It’s normal, it happens - that’s football. It’s how they’re trained and what they like to do, but it’s not what we do - we like to play football and get the game moving as fast as possible.
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“It’s a fight, that’s how they play. They battle and that’s what you can learn - just be aggressive.”
The Socceroos are still reeling from the contentious penalty - the referee penalising Mathew Leckie for a perfectly legal challenge - which allowed Syria to grab a draw with five minutes remaining.
It’s something Degenek says they will have to put behind them.
“In football you always get tough decisions,” he said. “Obviously that one is totally different - it’s out of the blue. It’s unfortunate but it happens, it’s just disappointing it happened to us.”
The Socceroos landed in Sydney five hours before Syria and full back Aziz Behich says the extra time, as well as the comfort of travel in a chartered plane, should give the team a significant advantage come game day.
“Definitely. Credit to our staff and everyone working behind the scenes to get us straight onto the plane and get us here as quick as possible,” he said. “We’ve done two recovery sessions and we’ve had a lot of time to recover.”
They also have their formidable home record behind them - the Socceroos haven’t lost a World Cup qualifying match on home soil since 2008, when an experimental side were beaten by China.
“It’s ideal coming back home,” Behich said. “We’re in a perfect position to go into the next round.”