Adelaide United Captain, Craig Goodwin, spoke to media in Qatar ahead of the Socceroos opening World Cup match.
Tackling current World Cup holders, France:
“We will study their gameplay and their style and look at the ways that they’re very effective, and also the ways that we can hurt them.
“France is a top team and you’re never going to get an easy game when you come to the World Cup.
“We’re just excited and we should go (into the game) with no pressure because we are the underdog.
“We’ve shown along the way to qualifying for this World Cup (where) we’ve been written off on many occasions in games and we’ve been able to get here.
“We know that it’ll be a tough game, but there’s no reason why we can’t shock the world.”
Posing a threat from set-pieces:
“In the modern game you can see, especially in the big games, set-pieces can be so lethal and can break the game wide open.
“At club level, I’ve got some big guys (as teammates)… so I’m used to picking out someone of Harry (Souttar’s) height.
“At the same time, we don’t want to go into these games and into this competition only being a ‘set-piece team’.
“We have that quality and we have that outlet, but we want to work really hard at being able to break teams down.”
Playing fearlessly:
“We just have to take it game by game… first and foremost, the France game.
“We have to go into every game with confidence – we’ve made it this far and there’s no point in going into a game with any type of fear.
“If you are going into these games with (fear), then you’re already on the back foot.
“We’re used to being in a situation where we are the underdog and I think that suits us, but, at the same time, we have to be brave, we have to be confident, and we have to play with no fear.”
Socceroos’ World Cup history:
“Directly after finding out about the selection, there (are) those emotions that kind of come over you.
“You think about what it’s taken to get to where you are.
“The thing that makes us so together within this group is we had the saying throughout the whole qualifying campaign, and it’s ‘many journeys, one jersey’.
“No matter who you are, you’re going through some sort of difficult path and everyone has their own journey to get to where they are and face their own setbacks.
“It’s all those challenges that you face individually, connected together with this group, it makes us stronger.
“I’m so proud of what I’ve had to go through and there have been a lot of situations along the way where I could have easily given up.
“I couldn’t make state teams when I was 13 and 14, but it’s that desire and I think it’s that winning mentality that everyone in this group shows.”
