Australia manager Graham Arnold says his players will fight for 90 minutes in Monday’s World Cup 2022 shootout against Peru in Qatar.
The two sides meet in a decisive play-off at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, with the second-last spot at this year’s global finals up for grabs. Australia qualified for the final play-off by defeating the UAE at the same venue on Tuesday.
While Australia are looking to secure a place at a fifth successive World Cup, Peru are attempting to qualify for back-to-back finals for the first time in 40 years. The teams met at the 2018 World Cup, with the South Americans winning the group clash 2-0.
Speaking to reporters at the pre-match press conference on Sunday, Arnold said: “South American football overall is technically good and unpredictable, so you‘ve got to be ready for everything that Peru throw at us. But the coaches truly believe in our players and making sure that our players are ready.
“It’s a one-off game, it’s a final. That’s crystal clear to everybody. But the most important thing is I keep the messaging to the boys simple - the players know their jobs, they go out and do it the Aussie way and that is to fight for 90 minutes, be very physical. And technically, the Peruvians will be surprised in the improvement that Australian football has taken.”
While Australia have been based in Doha for the past two weeks, Peru arrived in the Qatar capital on Friday having held a training camp in Spain. Arnold said he believed that, and the fact the team have experienced playing in air-conditioned stadiums there – Australia’s two opening third-round qualifiers were in Qatar because of the pandemic – represented an advantage for his side.
Peru, though, are expected to welcome up to 10,000 supporters for Monday’s match, with Arnold saying: “Normally these games are home and away. Maybe 10,000 Peruvian fans… that’s probably the smallest crowd they’ve played in front of. For us, we’re used to playing away from home, on neutral ground with not many fans, so the smaller crowd is an advantage to us."
On the threat Peru pose, he added: “I’m not worried about them. Obviously we’ve watched them, we’ve got detail on them, we know what their strengths are. It’s about making sure that we nullify those. But we’ve got our focus on our team.
“Obviously we’ve looked at Peru a number of times; we know exactly what they’re about. But it’s more what we do, and getting out on the pitch and making sure we do our job to win the game. As I said, we have respect for Peru, but we have full belief in ourselves.”
Australia defeat UAE in World Cup play-off
