Caltex Socceroos Assistant Coach Mark van Bommel fronted the media alongside captain Mile Jedinak at this morning’s press conference at the Groupama Arena in Budapest.
Van Bommel discussed Australia's FIFA World Cup™ preparations, offered some tournament insight and revealed what he's looking to see in tomorrow morning's friendly against Hungary.
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Here are van Bommel’s comments ahead the Caltex Socceroos friendly against Hungary tomorrow morning…
ON THE STARTING LINE UP AGAINST HUNGARY
“The players don’t know, so like Bert always says, you first tell the players and then you will see it.”
ON THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF WORLD CUP PREPARATION
“You never know. I’ve seen some teams who had very good preparations and then [after the tournament got underway] lost a few games, and the other way around.
“But I think we had a very good preparation in Turkey. We worked hard on [the] physical part and also tactical, and I think all of that gives us a lot of confidence.
“Of course we want to win [tomorrow morning’s friendly against Hungary] and have confidence to go to Russia, but that doesn’t give you a guarantee.”
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ON THE SQUAD'S FITNESS
“Yeah, everyone’s top fit!”
ON WHETHER AN EMPHASIS ON FITNESS WAS MOTIVATED BY AUSTRALIA'S GROUP C OPPONENTS
“It doesn’t matter for us against which opponent you play because at the World Cup you see a lot of systems.
“So it’s always good, it doesn’t matter if you play against Hungary or against the Czech [Republic], Colombia or Norway, we are teaching our players the way – the style of play that we can play against every opponent.
“That’s why we are developing the team.”
ON THE TEAM BUILDING ON THEIR CZECH REPUBLIC PERFORMANCE AGAINST HUNGARY
“Of course you want to play better than how we played against Norway, Colombia, [and] Czech Republic. And if we improve that every time then you become a good team.
“But like I said before, you don’t have a guarantee. If the preparation is very good and if you do all things right against Hungary [it doesn’t guarantee] that you’re going to win against France.
“But of course we are doing things well, we’ll try to do it even better.”
ON WHETHER BERT VAN MARWIJK IS TARGETING SPECIFIC AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT AGAINST HUNGARY
“No, [we are targeting improvement] in general. Of course we train something in training we want to see that for sure. Because [we are implementing] new things, but in general we have to improve.
“We stand [defend] well if we don’t have the ball and if we have the ball we get [execute] our ideas. That would be good if it goes well, then you can have confidence for the France game.
“It doesn’t matter how you prepare – of course [if you prepare well] for the confidence its perfect – but next week [at the World Cup] will be totally different.”
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