Players Arrive Refreshed And Confident

The Socceroos players arrived in Sydney earlier this morning after a 22-hour flight from Montevideo, looking refreshed and ready to do the business against Uruguay on Wednesday night.

The Socceroos players arrived in Sydney earlier this morning after a 22-hour flight from Montevideo, looking refreshed and ready to do the business against Uruguay on Wednesday night.

The specially arranged Qantas charter flight carried the players, staff and FFA officials in considerable comfort, arriving several hours after the Uruguayans, who had to make a mad dash straight after the game, to make sure they caught their commercial flight from Chile.

Socceroos captain Mark Viduka (pictured above) and his Middlesbrough and Australian team mate Mark Schwarzer, looked fresh after recuperating from the match and getting a good night-s sleep.

“The flight went very well, said Viduka, shortly after coming through the gates at Sydney airport, where they were greeted by a small, but no less noisy group of Australian supporters.

“Qantas have looked after us really well. They got us a nice aeroplane and we were able to relax, some people had rubs and we really had a good flight.

“All the doctors and staff have been trying to find out the best way to approach it,” Viduka said, when asked how they could adjust their body clocks. “I think they have done that, they have given us sleeping tablets when we needed them and I think that with their experience, I don-t think it will be a problem.”

Schwarzer said that the flight helped tremendously with their recuperation from the first game and that from now on they could simply concentrate on Wednesday-s match.

Both were standouts in a good Australian side that showed enough in the first game to suggest that they can get the better of the Uruguayans in the second leg.

“We held our ground and did well,” said Viduka. “We were a little bit disappointed to concede a goal from a free kick, because we had practiced that. We didn-t anticipate the guy coming in at the back post. But that was the only way they could score against us really.

Schwarzer added, “The way we played over there, I think we dominated the game and held our own. We caused a lot of problems without really testing their keeper as well as we should have done. Hopefully on home soil we can do that.”

Viduka believes the second game in Sydney will be a completely different game and believes the Australian supporters at the ground can make a huge difference.

“It will be a totally different game over here, especially with 85,000 fans egging us on,” Viduka said with great enthusiasm. “We-re optimistic for the 2nd leg, we have a lot of attacking options that can win us the game.

“We just attack I think,” Viduka replied when asked how to overcome a 1-0 deficit. “I think we are just going to have a go at them and as I said playing at home, you saw what their crowd was like when they were going forward. It was really an extra man for them.

“I think the crowd in Sydney is going to really back us. We want them to just get behind us, as soon as we get the ball just like they usually do.