The Socceroos have one desired outcome when South Korea face Saudi Arabia for an Asian Cup quarter-final berth against Australia: the game takes as long as possible.
After beating Indonesia 4-0 in the round of 16 in Qatar on Sunday night, Australia already have two days' rest on their next opponent - a prize for topping Group B.
The Socceroos will be likely enjoying a team dinner when Jurgen Klinsmann's South Korea and Roberto Mancini's Saudi Arabia, two of Asia's top teams, clash at 7pm local time on Tuesday (Wednesday 3am AEDT).
They will clearly be hoping the game goes the distance before the quarter-final, at 6.30pm local time Friday (Saturday 2.30am AEDT).
Coach Graham Arnold joked to AAP: "120-minute game with a penalty shootout would be fantastic."
Midfielder Jackson Irvine added with a laugh: "pens - and the rest. Loads of yellow cards, smash each other about. That'd be good."
While both were joking, the time advantage is real.
"Definitely it's gonna be massive for us to have that advantage, just to be a bit more fresh - but we've got to use that," midfielder Keanu Baccus told AAP.
"Because at the end of the day, football's close nowadays - so any advantage, we have to use."
The extra break is especially important for players like striker Mitch Duke, who just returned from a hamstring injury.
It plays into the Socceroos' hard-running style, too.
"That's always what we've been so good at is our physicality and our energy and high intensity in games," Duke said.
"We can run teams down.
"That showed even the last game - Indonesia came out of the gate, probably surprised a lot of us
"But you could see in the last 20 minutes they died out quite a lot without energy, but we've still got the energy to take over and run out the game - then finally to have the end product on top of that.
"If we can continue doing that, I think we can out-run anyone."
The Socceroos will be wary of letting any sense of complacency kick in against a tired opponent with a point to prove - regardless of who they play.
"If anything, I've been in this position before," Irvine told AAP.
"I'm sure every player at some point has been on both sides of this when you're the team that plays (later).
"I know that those two teams who are playing will be almost more up for it in the sense that they've got something there to say like 'yeah, OK, they've had this (advantage)' and it gets them more up for the game.
"So, of course, we'll use the recovery and we'll use the time well, but when it comes to game day, I've been on the other side of it as well and I know that it'll play no part in an important fixture like that."
