Hiddink Keeps Starting Line-up Close To His Chest

Guus Hiddink was keeping his cards close to his chest over his starting line-up for the deciding game in the FIFA World Cup qualifying play-off against Uruguay at Telstra Stadium on Wednesday night.

Guus Hiddink was keeping his cards close to his chest over his starting line-up for the deciding game in the FIFA World Cup qualifying play-off against Uruguay at Telstra Stadium Wednesday night.

Hiddink, will stick to his usually game plan and wait till a team meeting tomorrow morning to announce who will be the players that can create a piece of history for themselves, if they can get over the tough Uruguayans to make the next World Cup finals in Germany.

Uruguay go into the match holding a 1-0 advantage, following the first leg in Montevideo last Sunday morning (Australian time).

“We have made up our minds,” said a cagey Hiddink, prior to the teams final hit out at Telstra Stadium. “We (Hiddink and his technical staff) approached it as two games because there is a relation in the two games and as we approached the first game, we are also thinking of the second game, especially when we are talking about yellow cards.

“It-s one of my principles to talk in the last meeting with the players tomorrow morning what we are aiming, what we are planning to start, but what we are also planning to do later in the game.”

While certainly indicating that there might be a couple of changes, Hiddink gave nothing away as to who might come in and go out of the side tomorrow night, including whether Harry Kewell had recovered after playing a full 90 minutes in the first leg.

“We have to consider that Harry was out for a very, very long time,” said Hiddink. “He has worked very hard to get fit for these two games and of course he is not at top fitness because you need to play a lot of games, but he did what he had to do.

“So we'll have to see what he can contribute after playing a full match last Saturday."

Hiddink virtually poured cold water on the idea that his team will come out at a hundred miles and hour and blow Uruguay away early, indicating that against a team like Uruguay that would be suicide.

"Theoretically we can start from the first minute and attack, attack and attack, but you have to consider this is a high-level game also involves controlling the game.” “If you go and neglect one of the things of that control, you can be out of the game in a short time. "One of the things you must avoid, is to think you must score in the first minute and then the seventh minute etc. That's not realistic." The Dutchman, who took his home country to the semi-finals in 1998 and backed that up four years later, by guiding South Korea to the semi-finals, believes Uruguay will change its tactics for this game "Their might be a difference in approach to away and home games from the Uruguayan side,” Hiddink told the jam-packed media conference. “At home they (Uruguay) try to attack and they did and did well. But having this result, I don't know if they want to attack as they sometimes did later on in the game. “We-ll see tomorrow in every option we must have our answers. That's why we have worked, not just this week, but in the previous periods (training camps) in Holland with the aim on tomorrow's game. "Whatever they play, who is playing, we must have our answers and we have practiced that." Most present believe that Recoba is the main threat to Australia-s chances of qualifying, especially with his dangerous set pieces, which ultimately proved Australia-s downfall in the first leg. "Of course, he's one of the key players,” Hiddink said rather emphatically. “We did rather well in Uruguay, but the only thing is when there is set pieces he's very dangerous," "When he-s on the ball he makes a lot of input into the game, so we have to stop the delivery towards him and also his deliveries." Hiddink says the mood in the camp is very good and the players are very determined, without being too over-confident. "The confidence is good. The players want to show what they are able to do, but we must not forget we are playing against very experienced players," Hiddink said. "So we must not be too over-confident and forgetting what it's all about and that's controlling the play and try to get the job done."