Blues centre-half Cameron Burgess has been named on the bench as Australia take on Uzbekistan in their final group game at the AFC Asian Cup in Qatar this morning (KO 11.30am).
With the Socceroos already through to the round of 16 following victories over India and Syria in their previous two matches, manager Graham Arnold plans to utilise his squad.
Uzbekistan are second in the group on four points with a draw enough to confirm their place in the next round but they may go through even if defeated.
Burgess was left out of the team which beat the Indians 2-0 before returning to the XI to win his fifth full cap in the 1-0 win against the Syrians and was delighted to make his bow in the competition.
"First game in the Asian Cup, another one ticked off for the Socceroos, which is nice and a special moment for me,” he told the official Football Australia website.
"Good to have my family there to watch the game as well which is which is nice and, yeah, a step in the right direction.”
The 28-year-old won all his aerial duals during the game as the Socceroos kept a six successive clean sheet.
"I think that for the whole team it is something we can be proud of,” he reflected. "I think it’s something that we take pride in and something that we focus on, it's a big message for us and something we really think is a big strength. It’s tournament football, good to get a clean sheet and good to get another win.
"You've just got to find a way to win the game, it's not always going to be easy, especially when the team's set up like that.
"It means sometimes you can't score four and five goals; you have to just stick with it, and I think we've shown that as a team. In both games so far, we just stay calm and stick to the process.”
Turning to Uzbekistan he added: "We’ll have a look at them and what their strengths are and what they'll try and do.
"Both teams are looking to get top spot so should be an exciting game and hopefully we can go and take all three points.”
"We're here to win every game we're not here to take it easy in any games so we're going to go into that one with full confidence and hopefully go and take three points, top the group and take the confidence into the next few games.”
Burgess says he’s thoroughly enjoying being with the Socceroos squad: "I love being around these boys, it's a great group to be involved in.
"The boys are always up to something, there's always stuff going on around camp and it's a good place to be.”