The Socceroos face South Korea at 2.30am on Saturday morning (AEDT) for a place in the Asian Cup semi-finals in a blockbuster rematch of the 2015 tournament final.
Australia beat the team – now ranked 23rd in the world – in extra time to lift their maiden title on home soil.
Now, in their first tournament meeting since that thrilling final, the two Cup contenders will do battle in Qatar, and it promises to be another epic encounter.
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Neither team fully hit their stride in the group stages, but the world number 25 Socceroos racked up three clean sheets in their first four matches – including the 4-0 win over Singapore in the Round of 16.
So far, they’ve scored eight goals and conceded just once, continuing to build on an unbeaten run that now stretches to eight matches.
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And Australia have a key boost for the crunch clash against South Korea – the Aussies played their Round of 16 match a full 50 hours before their opponents, who were taken all the way to a penalty shootout by Saudi Arabia.
“I think there’s gonna be some sore bodies and tired bodies from the South Korea camp,” Socceroos striker Mitch Duke said on Thursday.
“We’ve got to exploit that with our high energy and our physicality of how we play anyway, I think it could be an advantage for us to use for sure and I’m sure we’re going to look at that in the coming days.”
But South Korea coach Jurgenn Klinsmann – a former German playing great – said his side were ‘ready to suffer’.
“Rest days are what they are. You accept it, you move on. We are ready,” Klinsmann said.
“We are ready for this huge game and we are very hungry. We want to go through.
“And if you want to go through in the knockout phases of a big tournament, you have to suffer. You have to be ready to suffer, you have to deal with pain, because you are banged up from the last game.
“That’s normal. It’s normal. And the players play this way at their club teams. Many of them play in Europe every three or four days. So it’s no problem.
“It will be a 50-50 match, it will be a hard-fought match. We are ready for the battle. We battled through 120 minutes against Saudi Arabia and we will go and battle through whatever it will takes against Australia.”
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Key to South Korea’s hopes of victory is Son Heung-Min, the Tottenham talisman who is back to his best form since Australian manager Ange Postecoglou took over at Spurs this season.
In a funny twist of fate, Postecoglou was in charge of the Socceroos for their 2015 Asian Cup campaign – when Son scored in the final but was not able to overcome Postecoglou’s Socceroos.
Asked about his plans to shut down Son, Graham Arnold joked: “I rang Ange and asked Ange if he can take him back!”
South Korea, ranked two places higher than the Socceroos, will be their hardest opponent of the tournament so far and were considered one of the pre-tournament favourites.
But Keanu Baccus said the Aussies weren’t afraid of South Korea’s bevy of superstars including Son, Kim Min-Jae (Bayern), Lee Kang-In (PSG), and Hwang Hee-Chan (Wolves).
“We’re not too worried about them, we just worry about ourselves, but yeah they’ve got some individual players that are great, and we’ve got talent too, we respect them, but we don’t fear them,” he said.
“We go out and play our game and do what we’ve been doing this tournament. We’ve only conceded the one goal this whole tournament, if we do that again the rest will take care of itself.”
While South Korea pose an immensely difficult task, both teams will be bullish about their chances of reaching the final should they win tonight.
World no. 87 Jordan or Tajikistan, ranked 106th in the world, loom as the semi-final opponent for the victor.
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FIXTURE DETAILS
Australia v Korea Republic
Saturday, February 3rd 2024
Al-Janoub Stadium, Al-Wakrah
Kick-off: 6:30pm local (2:30am AEDT)
