Socceroos aim to 'spoil' home World Cup for Group D foes USA

"It falls to us to spoil one part of that," Socceroos midfielder Aiden O'Neill, who plays for Major League Soccer side New York City FC, told AFP on Saturday.

"Obviously, I think it's fantastic that the World Cup is being held in the United States. The game is growing. I see that first hand, and I'm part of it.

"I believe it's genuinely exciting... We'll finish first and they can come second!"

Turkey and Paraguay are also in the group, making it arguably the most balanced group in the tournament.

The United States are favourites to progress, while Australia, traditionally stronger in several other sports despite consistently qualifying for the World Cup, have mostly stayed under the radar.

O'Neill said that the trademark grit that pervades Australian sports could give his team the edge in reaching the knockout stages against talented opponents.

"I think you can see that we will give absolutely everything to achieve that result, and I believe that could be the deciding factor," he said.

"There is that fight and resolve. It's something we take great pride in, having that grit and determination."

His side showed plenty of defensive solidity and sacrifice in their narrow 1-0 defeat to Mexico on Saturday. Despite conceding an early goal, Australia created the better chances.

The match took place 150 miles from the Mexico border at the Rose Bowl near Los Angeles, where the overwhelming majority of the nearly 80,000 strong crowd supported El Tri.

"We are obviously going to encounter that sort of atmosphere in the second game against the United States, with home crowd advantage," said defender Harry Souttar, whose side face the USA in Seattle on June 19.

"I love it. I'll get excited by it," said goalkeeper Mathew Ryan.

"Maybe it's very easy for people to think that you go out there feeling nervous about all that, but I think you have to try to flip that and turn it into excitement," Australia's captain told AFP.

The experienced goalkeeper, who had a successful spell at Brighton and Hove Albion as well as a brief loan at Arsenal, said at this stage in his career a hostile home crowd was just "white noise."

The pro-Mexico crowd in California on Saturday was furious when an apparent second goal for their team was disallowed after the referee judged that a free kick had been taken too quickly.

But Australia had the better of the second half, and coach Tony Popovic said his side's performance after the break "will give us a lot of confidence that we can play against a very good nation, a fantastic team, well coached, with a big crowd."

Could that backs to the wall experience give Australia the edge in Seattle against the hosts?

"I'm not sure if they will be as loud as these guys, but we will wait and see," said O'Neill.