Limited preparation no excuse as Socceroos target big win over Taiwan

Australia coach Graham Arnold says the Socceroos should expect to claim a convincing win against Taiwan on Tuesday night.

Socceroos captain Mark Milligan knows from experience that minnow teams like Taiwan aren’t necessarily pushovers when playing at home. Picture: Getty Images

Australia coach Graham Arnold says the Socceroos should expect to claim a convincing win in Tuesday night’s World Cup qualifier against Taiwan.

The Socceroos arrived in the east Asian nation on Saturday following Thursday’s 5-0 win over Nepal and have just one training session at the Kaohsiung National Stadium before the match.

Oppressive conditions are expected for match day with the temperature forecast to be in the high-20s and humidity around 70 per cent at kick-off.

Despite the limited build-up, Arnold is pulling no punches in his expectations from his team against the Group B minnows.

“This is 25 per cent of what it was in Kuwait. We haven’t been mentioning anything about it, the players haven’t even thought about it,” Arnold said. “This is nothing, this is great. The pitch will be good and nice stadium … we don’t have any of those excuses.”

Australia left Canberra with a sense of frustration despite a five-goal winning margin over Nepal, with several opportunities missed to extend the scoreline. Against the world No 129 Taiwanese, replicating the 8-0 scoreline from the two nations’ most recent meeting in 2012 would appear to be a bare minimum for Arnold.

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“Archie (Thompson) scored 13 goals in one game but he wasn’t happy after one or two or three. He kept going and that’s what it’s about,” Arnold said. “I saw that from Jamie (Maclaren) the other night. You can see that from players who are really believing in what we’re doing.

“I really feel that we’re on the right path. Things are going well and the most important thing is the environment’s great and the boys are happy and relaxed.”

Arnold is expected to make slight changes to his starting XI from the team that defeated Nepal.

Hat-trick hero Jamie Maclaren may sit out for Adam Taggart, while seven other players who didn’t feature last Thursday will be pushing their claims.

“There will be changes. A couple of changes,” Arnold said.

“We only played a few days ago back in Canberra and the boys have pulled up really, really well.

“There’s some boys who want to show and this is an opportunity for those boys to show me really what they’ve got and show the country what they’ve got.”

Socceroos captain Mark Milligan’s last visit to Taiwan probably wasn’t the greatest overseas adventure of his long career.

Milligan was the Olyroos’ captain in 2007 when his team laboured to a 1-0 win in Taipei over a team they had beaten 11-0 a few days before on home soil. For good measure, he also suffered a broken nose from a stray elbow, which subsequently had to be operated on in Australia.

“They broke it back in to place in the dressing rooms and then flew me back to Oz to get it operated,” Milligan said.

“Silly of me. My fault — put my head where it shouldn’t be.”

Happily for Milligan, the Socceroos’ World Cup qualifier against Taiwan on Tuesday night is in the southern port city of Kaohsiung.

A world away from the hustle and bustle of the Taiwanese capital Taipei, the match will also be played at a unique venue — the Kaohsiung National Stadium. Built as the main venue for the 2009 World Games, the eco-friendly venue has an open-ended look, designed to resemble a curled-up dragon.

That dragon’s ‘scales’ comprise more than 8000 solar panels, ensuring the stadium runs entirely on its own energy.

The solar energy stored by Kaohsiung’s stadium generates enough energy to provide almost 80 per cent of the local area’s power requirements when it’s fed on to the grid.

While Australia are expected to overwhelm the minnows who currently sit bottom of Group B, Milligan says the under-23s struggles 12 years ago should serve as a warning to avoid complacency.

“We had a good result against them at home and then, over here, we won 1-0. So I know, we say it all the time, but they can be tough places to come,” he said. “We know that we have to be at our best and we have to start well and then we’ll get a positive result.”

AAP