Hiddink slams 'dirty' label

Australia’s coach Guus Hiddink has labelled comments by officials and players from Japan that the Socceroos play dirty as ridiculous and unfair, at his final press conference before the two teams meet in Kaiserslautern on Monday afternoon.

Australia-s coach Guus Hiddink has labelled comments by officials and players from Japan that the Socceroos play dirty as ridiculous and unfair, at his final press conference before the two teams meet in Kaiserslautern on Monday afternoon.

When asked about the comments, which said Australia was guilty of a lot of dirty fouls; they target ankles and they are too terrible, Hiddink was clearly irritated.

"That-s ridiculous," said an angry Hiddink. "I don-t know where they are aiming at, most likely because it was a tough game last weekend (against Holland)."

"Personally, I was angry at some, not all, comments that we were playing tough. I saw the whole game and there were one or two injuries of Dutch players."

"If you are honest with yourself, you will see the injury from Sneijder was committed by himself, and Phillip Cocu-s injury was a collision at a corner (kick), where he turned away and collided with Mark (Viduka)."

"That-s normal in a game, so I am very angry if people are suggesting that." Hiddink also thinks this also might be people playing mind games, which is not unusual before World Cup-s and trying to get thoughts into people-s heads about the way we play.

"The people who make these comments are writing to create an atmosphere which gives a condition on referees and I think that is unfair. You should play fair at the beginning and judge if the moments are there."

"The people who makes these comments have an irresponsible behaviour towards our team and the sport in general."

"There is always games played towards the opponents and I think this should be a fair contest."

Hiddink however does not believe the Egyptian official Essam ABD EL FATAH, appointed to control the game, will be influenced by these comments and will not get carried away as some are suggesting.

"I think its very good," Hiddink said of his the Egyptian-s appointment. "We are very neutral in this case."

"What I have saw so far in the past games, the referees are not over-excited, are not over-reacting."

"The refereeing so far is very good, so I don-t see any resistance against the appointment of this referee."

Captain Mark Viduka also agreed with his coach and believes his team go out to play fair.

"To be honest I don-t know what all the hype is about," said Hiddink. "We as Australian-s, and our team in particular, play fair everytime we go out (to play)."

"We are very competitive people, we like to win and we-ll never pull out of a tackle. It doesn-t mean we go out there to hurt people."