Graham Arnold and Harry Souttar were on Matchday -1 media duties ahead of Australia's first game against Ecuador in Sydney on Friday night.
Watch below or read on for a summary of the key pre-match talking points!
Arnold on the makeup of the starting lineup:
I think it'll be a mixture. Obviously, with some of the older players that we used quite a lot at the World Cup are out injured, so it's a great opportunity to blend. I think, if you put just the kids in all alone without the older players to help them on the pitch could be a little bit daunting for them. But I think a good mixture, and a good blend of players will be crucial.
Arnold on the start of a new cycle:
As I said, publicly, it's been more around an opportunity to celebrate what the boys did, but internally it's been more about the new campaign is starting. And it started yesterday, we did a great presentation to the boys reflecting on the World Cup, and then that's our base. It's now about going higher than what we did. We're bringing players in young players that I believe can really help achieve special things and giving them the opportunity, it's going to be good to see how the younger ones go against South Americans, because they probably have never played against South American nations before so it'll be a great experience for them moving forward.
Arnold on Jordan Bos and Alex Robertson's prospects of playing:
I think there's a good chance. Jordy is doing exceptionally well at Melbourne City and it's good to have experienced players around him on the pitch to help. Alex Robertson, I've only had him in camp for two days but yesterday at training, he had a very good session, and he looks very calm and relaxed and has got a lot of quality. So it'd be good to see how he goes in a game.
Souttar on how far the squad have come:
I think you have only got to look at the Olympic campaign and how many of the lads in that squad and how far they have come, what kind of clubs they've gone to, how many minutes they've put in. Four years is such a long time in football for this next campaign. So I'm sure they're going to grow with clubs and the national team and again, there'll be youngsters coming through behind them as well.
Arnold on the main goals of this new cycle:
We've set three main goals straightaway. It's about not just resting on our laurels, it's about expecting more. I don't think we could go through a tougher campaign in terms of what we had to do with COVID. But the way I see it going forward is the three main goals. The first one is Asian Cup, expectations are there to be successful and do well. Second thing is to qualify directly for the World Cup. And the third one is to go and do what we did more at the next World Cup. So there are three main goals for this campaign. I don't think the messaging has to change too much.
Souttar on how he earned his Premier League move:
Obviously, there's a lot of different factors, but hard work and a little bit of luck as well, people putting faith in me like the boss here and a few managers back at club land. But first and foremost, I say hard work and I think over the last 12 months with injury, I worked my socks off to get back fit and to get in the team. I know the boss put faith in me and he's big on kind of the mindset of players and not only feeling physically fit, but mentally strong and mentally ready. It's been a bit of a whirlwind to be fair, the first kind of six, seven weeks. A dream come true to get there.
Arnold on Nestory Irankunda's prospects of playing:
I can tell you guys now that Riley McGree is out of the first game. He caught a bit of a bug on the flight coming across so we only just saw him for the first time this morning. He had the flu and those type of things. So that gives Nestor the chance to be in the 26 man squad, then we'll see how the game goes.
Arnold on his right back options:
Tomorrow night we will play Milos (Degenek) there and we'll play a little bit lopsided. But you know that opportunity for Ryan Strain and Nathaniel Atkinson in the second game, we could see them down in Melbourne. But 100% it could be a change of system further down the track, you know, to play to our strengths, because at the end of the day in two sessions, I can't change the wheel, I have to adapt the system to the strengths of the players.
Arnold on returning home for the first time since the World Cup:
"It's great to come back and the most most satisfying thing over the whole campaign was the fans back at home. Seeing what we saw in Qatar was just mind blowing. I'm getting goosebumps now talking about it, because you don't see any other sport get that. The final of the NRL World Cup was on nearly a week before our World Cup started and you didn't see that in the finals of the NRL World Cup. So you know, we're just about making the nation proud and happy. All I want to do is do that again and make them even happier if I can.