Result against Greece not that important: Hiddink

Socceroos coach Guus Hiddink has warned Australian fans not to worry too much about the result in tomorrow nights match against Greece, with the main aim on June 12 when they take on Japan.

Socceroos coach Guus Hiddink has warned Australian fans not to worry too much about the result in tomorrow nights match against Greece, with the main aim on June 12 when they take on Japan.

While acknowledging that a result against the European Champions at the MCG would be nice, Hiddink is not overly concerned if they go down narrowly, as long as they are going in the right direction in terms of his tactics he wants to employ during the World Cup.

"The aim is to be fit for all the needs against Japan,” Hiddink said, at a packed press conference at the MCG, prior to the teams- one and only training session at the ground. "The result is not so important."

“The importance is to be very fit, physically, mentally and tactically and the strategic way of playing, that-s the most important thing.”

“That-s not to say we won-t be taking the game as seriously as our opponent does, because we will be.”

“Tomorrow is the first in a row of three practice games and of course it-s important to see how we can play.”

Hiddink expects Greece to be tough to beat and believes they have extra motivation after they missed out on a place at the World Cup finals.

“For us it-s a difficult game to play,” Hiddink said. “Because for what I know, every big player of Greece is here and of course they are not in the World Championship and they want to have some kind of revenge and you want to show the world that they should be respected.”

Hiddink also gave a pretty clear indication that he will be sticking with a core group of players right throughout the preparation, with fringe players possibly only getting a run because of injuries or lack of form.

Given he has three games in which to really drive home his tactics to the team, he is likely to stick with those players that played a major role in the qualifiers, although the absence of John Aloisi, Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell, has given several players the chance to make a claim in the Greece match.

"Tomorrow their will not be too many surprises. I won't change that many players. Maybe in the last part of the game, I might use some other players.”

The likely Socceroos line-up is: Mark Schwarzer (gk); Brett Emerton, Craig Moore, Lucas Neill, Scott Chipperfield; Vince Grella, Josip Skoko, Jason Culina, Marco Bresciano, Mile Sterjovski; Mark Viduka.

When asked about the atmosphere for tomorrow night-s game, Hiddink is quite astounded at the crowd that will be at the game. With all tickets sold, a new record crowd of around 95,000 is set to break the record for the newly reconfigured stadium, as well as smash the record attendance for a football game in Australia, set at November-s World Cup qualifying win over Uruguay at Telstra Stadium in Sydney.

“For a friendly game, it-s surprisingly a high number of people that will be there,” Hiddink added. “I would to thank all of them for coming out to help send off the Socceroos.”

Some good signs today that Tim Cahill and John Aloisi are well on the mend, as they moved freely and took part in light passing of the ball drills as they warmed up. However they, along with Josh Kennedy (Achilles tendon soreness) trained away from the rest of the group during the main session.