Australia do not fear ´aggressive´ Chile

Assistant coach Aurelio Vidmar insists Australia will have no fear against an “aggressive” Chile side in Friday’s encounter.

Chile are widely considered as favourites for the FIFA World Cup Group B showdown and Jorge Sampaoli’s men have been tipped to battle reigning champions Spain and the Netherlands for one of the two spots on offer for the knockout stages.

Vidmar is aware of the difficulty that Ange Postecoglou and his squad face, but the 47-year-old is adamant that Australia will not shy away from the challenge posed by the South American outfit.

“They’re very aggressive in the way they want to play their game,” Vidmar told Goal Australia.

“They take a lot of risks. They’re quite brave in how they have an attacking formation. And when you’ve got some of the best players in the world in (Eduardo) Vargas, (Arturo) Vidal and (Alexis) Sanchez as your front three, then I suppose you can be a little brave.

“We’re not afraid of that. We certainly will know how they play. And we’ll try to put them on the back foot, make them think twice about how aggressive they want to be in terms of their playing style.

“That’s what we’re starting to plan and Ange is starting to get the message across to the players, that’s what we want to do. They’ll put a lot of pressure on the midfield and we want to try and play through all that.

“We’ve got the technical players to do that, it’s just going to take a little bit of time. But I’m confident that by the time we are ready to face Chile, that the players will be confident in the way we want to play.”

Chile could be without Arturo Vidal as the Juventus midfielder is struggling with a knee injury.

However, Vidmar is expecting a tough task regardless of who makes Chile’s starting XI.

“They’ve got some super players as we all know, playing in some of the biggest clubs in the world,” he added.

“They’ll definitely be a very tough proposition.”