Day 9 Wrap: Juric training update as final players arrive

The Caltex Socceroos got back out on the training park in Antalya, Turkey with two new players joining in Bert van Marwijk’s lone session of the day.

With players also engaging in a media session – with headshots taken ahead of the FIFA World Cup, there was also positive news for Tomi Juric who returned to train with the main group on Monday.

Here’s a wrap of Day 9 in Socceroos camp, brought to you by Caltex. Stay tuned to socceroos.com.au as we provide daily updates before Russia 2018 …

Coming back after a day off from training, the Caltex Socceroos players were put through their paces with just a single session as the first pre-FIFA World Cup friendly looms on Friday night (AEST).

With Jamie Maclaren and Tom Rogic having both landed in Turkey, the duo were introduced to training for the first time where the team went through their usual warm up, into a passing drill and then into small sided games.

As the small sided games gradually got larger, the session ended with a box-to-box sized game on the big field, where competition was high and players pushed to impress ahead of the Czech Republic match on Friday 9.00pm AEST.

All players were out on the training park, including striker Tomi Juric who continues his return from an injury sustained at the end of his club season with Luzern.

Juric trained with the main group on Monday and then did some solo training, watched closely by head physio Les Gelis and head of sports science Craig Duncan.

Skipper Mile Jedinak is the final player to arrive in camp, due in overnight on Monday (local time) before the team then flies to Austria on Wednesday afternoon (local time).

With almost a full range of players to pick from, selection headaches are becoming a great problem for van Marwijk who has just one friendly to assess his extended 27-man squad before whittling it down to 23 on Sunday 3 June AEST.

“I’d love to be part of it (Friday’s friendly),” said left back James Meredith on the desire to walk out for the Czech Republic friendly.

“But if I am not it’s okay, I am still going to put my head down and work hard. But it would be great to get some minutes on the pitch.

“I love being away with the Socceroos and I love being among the Aussie boys. I am really motivated at the moment and I am very ambitious to try to seal my place in the final 23.”

Stay tuned for exclusive Caltex Socceroos training camp photos, footage and insight on socceroos.com.au or follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.