Australia are in a group that have been aptly tagged as the ‘group of death’. With host country and one of the tournament’s favourites Brazil, current world cup holders Spain, Holland and Chile all in their group, they have a monumental task of qualifying from that group. See how we think the Socceroos can beat Chile in their must win first match.

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The Angtche Postecoglou-led Socceroos would begin their World Cup group B campaign against Chile on Friday. The match kicks off at 8am on Saturday morning AEST. Bookmakers, pundits and popular opinions favour the Socceroos crashing out at the group stages. But in football, anything is possible. Here are a few reasons why and how the Socceroos can beat Chile on.

• The Chilean side are an attack-minded side. While they had scored more goals than any other team in the CONMEBOL, they also conceded the most goals. Their adventurous spirit may turn out to be their biggest undoing as it gives a more defence-minded Australian team the opportunity to punish them with quick counter attacks.
• We would be counting on our pacy duo of Tommy Oar and Mathew Leckie. Add that to the aerial superiority of our veteran striker Tim Cahill and a win against Chile could just be within reach.

According to Oar,  “If you look at the way they (the Chileans) play, they like to play a high, pressing game.”

“If they do that, we know that they are going to leave spaces behind as well”.

“We are just trying to play to our strength… We know that if we play to our capabilities we are going to cause them problems.”

• The Chilean national team have a well documented history of very physical football. Fortunately  for them, the Socceroos are more than a match for them in that department.
• Another reason is this: Chile is known for their abysmally poor disciplinary records in international football. So when you factor in the sweltering heat of the Pantanal Stadium in
• Cuiabá, a city known for high humidity and often searing temperatures even in winter, they would be very easy to irritate.

Add all these together and Australia could have a decent result in the game against Chile. Another interesting thing is that the results of opening games are quite unpredictable: for instance who would have correctly expected Switzerland to beat Spain in the opening game of the last world cup?

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In the 2006 world cup, Japan’s Brazilian coach Zico said “We are in a very tough group. Croatia and Brazil are very good.” No mention was made to Australia. To him, the Socceroos were no threats. We proved him wrong by beating Japan 3 -1 and qualified from that “very tough group”.

We do hope we’re able to replicate such again.

Chile are also burdened with injury worries. Their talented forward Arturo Vidal has not recovered from a minor knee surgery as quickly as was expected. He has subsequently been ruled out of the Friday’s encounter. A good relief for the Socceroos. But the rampaging Barcelona striker Alexis Sanchez is another daunting task for the largely not-too-experienced Australian defence. Should our defenders be able to curtail Sanchez, our chances of coming out of the encounter with a result would be significantly increased.

One last reason why the Socceroos may grind out a win on Friday is simply this: pressure would be on Chile to beat Australia. And according to our star player Oar, “The weight of expectation will be on them. Hey know if they don’t get something their backs will be against the wall. So for us we can go into the game with a lot of confidence and really take the game to them”