JURIC AND MOOY CONFIRMED STARTERS AGAINST THAILAND

STRIKER Tomi Juric will join assist king Aaron Mooy in returning to the starting side for tomorrow night’s World Cup qualifier against Thailand, the Socceroos’ most important clash in a decade.

Mooy, who missed Thursday’s loss to Japan after falling ill, had been expected to return to the side, but Juric’s status was unclear until yesterday.

Mooy and Juric, who copped a knock playing for his Swiss club and came off the bench in Saitama, trained with the squad yesterday at AAMI Park.

Both players have been Socceroos mainstays under coach Ange Postecoglou. Juric is Australia’s leading scorer in qualifying and Mooy leads the assists.

“They are fine and ready to go. Both have been playing regularly and they are both fit, so no problem,” Postecoglou said yesterday.

“Aaron was due to start the last game, but obviously on the day of the game he didn’t pull up. Tomi could have started as well, but he hadn’t trained at all and we just felt that it was going to be too much of a risk for him to start.”

Mark Milligan, a veteran of three World Cups, said Australia remained confident of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup regardless of the route.

Milligan said the players had not lost faith in the game plan after the 2-0 loss to Japan.

“There’s no more important game that I can recall over the last 10 years since we’ve been in Asia,’’ he said of tomorrow night’s clash.

“It’s not going to be easy but we’ll get the result needed. I still believe we will go through.

Melbourne City goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic has been called up to replace the injured Adam Federici.

Federici returns to England days after signing a loan deal from Bournemouth to secondtier Nottingham Forest.