Australia will be without some key players in Brasilia but there is valuable experience to be gained against the Selecao
Brazil's Neymar will post a huge threat to Australia this weekend. Photograph: Eraldo Peres/AP
Both Australia and Brazil enter Saturday's friendly international having experienced momentous team-galvanising highs in recent months.
The match in Brasilia will be the first get-together for Australia, or more specifically for the first-team regulars, since Australia enjoyed that heady feeling of euphoria inspired by Josh Kennedy's winner against Iraq which ensured qualification to cap a successful, albeit arduous, World Cup campaign .
As World Cup hosts Brazil, of course, did not need to undergo a qualification campaign. It is an honour that is sometimes, however, a double-edged sword. A string of modest results and a gamble on a change of coach to the iconic Luiz Felipe Scolari, meant an impressive result – and performance – was a must at July's Confederations Cup.
Despite the weight of expectation Brazil delivered in style just when they needed it most, five straight wins were capped by a 3-0 rout of world champions Spain – an unthinkable scoreline just a few months earlier.
Brazil's results at the Confederations Cup are, on the surface at least, bad news for the Socceroos. The five-time world champions are newly emboldened by their win on home turf, arriving, as it did, just as the heat was getting uncomfortable from a public used to success and privately nervous about next year's possible repeat of the Maracanazo: Brazil's national football tragedy that was the unexpected 1950 World Cup final defeat on home turf .
Potentially July's triumph could conversely mean that Brazil have taken their foot off the pedal just slightly; a 1-0 loss suffered by a near full strength Selecaoagainst a modest Switzerland in Basel last month adds weight to the theory.
The Socceroos too will have been revitalised by their World Cup qualification. An erratic 2013 was on the verge of imploding when they turned in their best performance of recent times to draw in Japan, before a confidence-boosting 4-0 victory over Jordan and that nervous, though soon-to-be storied win over Iraq.The results were, in part, a by-product of some old-fashioned fortitude, team unity and an ability to rise to the occasion when it mattered most. All traits on which the Socceroo reputation and spirit has been forged down the decades. The aged legs of Lucas Neill and Sasa Ognenovski holding firm against Japan's fleet-footed attackers in Saitama a case in point.
A Brazil side on home turf featuring an attack led by Neymar and Co, and playing to their full potential is, of course, another level. Most casual observers around the world would mark down a match between Brazil and Australia as a certain win to the former. That may indeed be a likely outcome in the wee hours of Sunday morning Australian time, although the Socceroos have a proud history against former world champions.
The ageless Mark Schwarzer, and Mark Bresciano – then more commonly known as Marco and sporting a full head of hair – were present when Australia knocked over Brazil for the only time in six attempts. Ulsan in South Korea was the unlikely location as Australia edged out the South Americans to claim third spot at the 2001 Confederations Cup thanks to Shaun Murphy's late back-post header.
That defeat of Brazil was one of six former world champions that Australia have defeated with France beaten earlier in the tournament to book-end a remarkable ten days for the Socceroos. There have also been wins over Argentina in 1988, England just over ten years ago, Germany in 2011, and several over Uruguay.
However, a win over Brazil on their home turf is another matter altogether although their record in Brasilia is modest. Like Canberra it is a planned city developed with capital status in mind. Only nine internationals have been played there since it became the capital in 1960, with the home side losing once.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given its administrative focus, it is a city with little football pedigree and is currently without a top flight club in the 20-team Campeonato Brasileiro. Recent stars such as Kaka and Lucio hail from the capital, but there will be no local contingent in the squad for this weekend's match at the Estádio Nacional Mané Garrincha; the venue that is named in honour of the flawed genius who was so instrumental in Brazil's first two World Cup triumphs.
Nevertheless, the stadium has suddenly found itself to be the birthplace of Brazil's recent revival.
A string of poor results saw Mano Menezes sacked last November but Scolari, the returning hero, was barely able to arrest the slide, resulting in a drop to a record low of 22 on the Fifa world rankings.
Some suggested the Confederations Cup was the final opportunity to prove that the World Cup campaign, and with it national pride, could be saved.
The momentum shift came in the third minute of the tournament as Neymar's goal against Japan turned the wave of pessimism for both the team and for the headline-grabbing, but internationally unproven, striker. A few weeks earlier Neymar played his final match for Santos before his much-publicised departure for Barcelona, and burst into tears as the national anthem was played. As one Brazilian journalist stated of the refurbished venue, "It's a brand new stage, but one already filled with symbolism for the team and, specifically for Neymar."
The match marks the start of a long run-in to next June's World Cup. It seems unlikely that the Australia coach, Holger Osieck, who has shown more pragmatism than gambler's spirit in his three years at the helm, will be willing to experiment in this particular environment. Of the 17 outfield players in the squad just four – Robbie Cornthwaite, Mitchell Duke, Ryan McGowan and Tom Rogic – have fewer than 10 caps. The remainder are largely familiar to Osieck and Socceroo fans alike.
A modest showing by Australia's Asia and A-League based squad at the recent East Asian Championship will give Osieck little confidence that those pushing for selection are ready to make the step up.
What Osieck and his side learn from the match remains to be seen. The experience of visiting next year's World Cup hosts will be of benefit, as participants at the Confederations Cup routinely point out.
Australia's lack of depth and relative experience too means that the absence of Tim Cahill and Luke Wilkshire will be felt much deeper than Brazil's missing trio of Dani Alves, Fred and Hulk.
A number of candidates are set to vie for Cahill's position, while McGowan and Rhys Williams are in the frame to deputise for Wilkshire.
Maicon is expected to fill the void left by Barcelona full-back Dani Alves, Bernard is in contention for Hulk's attacking role, while Jo is pencilled in to take the place of Fred, the striker who scored the sealer in Brazil's 2-0 win over Australia in Munich at the 2006 World Cup.