John Aloisi makes bold Tony Popovic claim as Socceroos attempt to complete 15-year-first

Socceroos great John Aloisi believes new coach Tony Popovic has the tactical nuance it takes to secure Australia's first win over Japan in 15 years. Aloisi knows better than most the feeling of beating Japan on the world stage and says Popovic's football tactics are perfect for dismantling the Samurai Blue.

Aloisi, who scored in Australia's famous 2006 World Cup win over Japan in Kaiserslautern, says Popovic's side can stifle Japan's attack at every turn. And Aloisi believes looking beyond the Japan task, Popovic can have a successful run in charge of the Australian team, which he expects under their new leader will have a solid defensive structure - as is the trademark of Popovic-led teams.

"The longer you go (without conceding) - and I know with a Popovic team he'll make sure that they're really organised and hard to break down, and then with a little bit of quality going forward you can cause them problems - so you expect that could frustrate the Japanese," Aloisi told AAP. "At this point in time, yes, we always want to see our national team playing a certain style of football and attacking and scoring goals, but we need results and I think Popa can get those results."

Aloisi says the Socceroos teams of the 2000s were feared by sides such as Japan and the former Soceroo believes Popovic can turn Australia into a team that international teams fear playing again. "We felt like we were able to overrun and overpower Japan when we were back in 2006," he said.

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"Technically they were probably still better than us, even though we had some really good technical players. But we knew that we would overrun, overpower them and win the game Whether that means we're in their faces, it's probably just a term. But it's that, 'I'm not gonna give you time on the ball - we're gonna be pressing you, we're gonna be making it hard for you to create something'.

"I know that Mitch Duke's team's (J1 League leaders Machida Zelvia) done that. They just press, they press, they press, they go long, they press' - they're probably more comfortable without the ball than with the ball. I don't know what Popa's gonna do but I can imagine that he will try and make it uncomfortable for the Japanese."

Is a win over Japan Australia's best World Cup qualifying result?

Aloisi, however, isn't downplaying the task at hand on Tuesday night, declaring a point would be a "huge" result. The former Socceroo believes while Popovic is the right man to lead Australia into battle, they are still massive underdogs and says a win would mark Australia's greatest-ever World Cup qualification triumph.

"A win would be one of our biggest results," he said. "Forget about over there, it's '09 here. That's 15 years. So that's a long period of time since we've won a game against Japan

"So a win there would be one of our biggest results, especially in qualification. In World Cups, we've had a few big results but in qualification, that would be our biggest result."

with AAP