Young 'Roos confident

Qantas Young Socceroos coach Jan Versleijen believes his squad's fight-to-the-death mentality has it well-placed to overcome a horror draw and advance past the first round of this month's U-20 FIFA World Cup in Egypt.

Qantas Young Socceroos coach Jan Versleijen believes his squad's fight-to-the-death mentality has it well-placed to overcome a horror draw and advance past the first round of this month's U-20 FIFA World Cup in Egypt.

Australia has been pitted against traditional football powerhouse Brazil, 2007 runner-up the Czech Republic and CONCACAF champions Costa Rica in Group E.

But after announcing his 21-man squad in Sydney on Tuesday, Versleijen declared an invaluable 16-month period of qualifying matches and overseas tournaments had his players primed to produce something special in the land of the pyramid.

"When I first came to Australia and I had my first experience with the Australian football players, they are very determined and they are very keen to learn and they have a really good winning mentality," he said.

"They never give up. All the games we played - even the one where we qualified for the World Cup - we finalised in the last minutes."

"That means those players are very focused and concentrated and they never give up and that's a good thing."

"The things we have to add in Australian football are a little bit more international experience, a little bit more technical guidance."

"If we can add those things with the winning mentality, then Australia can be very competitive and very challenging to play against."

Asked his expectations for the World Cup, Versleijen replied without blinking: "The first thing when you go over there is to win the tournament - it's only about winning."

"You meet very high quality teams and all the 11 starting players have to be very good to get the result."

"You cannot have two players or one player not 100 percent in the game."

"We are very excited to compete at the highest level against the best in the world and I believe they will level up (to the opposition)."

Defender Luke DeVere, who is line for the captaincy, is equally confident the Qantas Young Socceroos can defy predictions they will be one of the first teams exiting Cairo Airport.

"When you go to a tournament, especially a World Cup, you go to win," he said.

"We're not going there to make up the numbers. Hopefully we can progress to the next round after the group stage and go from there."

"We've had all those camps and international experience and that's a big asset."

The Australian squad departs on Monday for a pre-tournament camp in Cyprus where they have warm-up games against Trinidad and Tobago, the USA and England.

It opens its World Cup campaign against the Czech Republic in Port Said on September 27.