Join Ed Wyatt and Francis Leach as they discuss Pim Verbeek's Socceroo squad in a BPL podcast after 11am on Tuesday morning.

I had to pause momentarily when the BackPageLead editors asked me to pick my 23-man Socceroos squad for South Africa 2010. Do I pick the team I'd like to see? Or do I pick the team I think Pim Verbeek will go with? Or do I tread carefully and select a team I think will appease the always-ready-to-critcise general public?

See, I'm mindful that this is such a polarising topic that if I make one controversial pick, half the readers will hate me. The other half already think I'm better suited to analyse Bob Bradley's USA team.

The interesting thing about World Cup campaigns is that depending on which qualifiers you've watched and which leagues you follow closely, you're bound to have passionate opinions about certain players and be completely clueless about others. We can all watch Tim Cahill live and in HD most weekends, but how many of us have actually seen Mile Jedinak play for Antalyaspor?

Let's take goalkeepers as another example. Once you get past Mark Schwarzer, you could argue for hours over Dutch beer or Turkish coffee (or Turkish beer for that matter, Efes Pilsen is pretty good) about who else goes. Do you rate the performance of Adam Federici in the English Championship over Michael Petkovic in Turkey? Do you take both of those guys as backups, or do you pick a young A-Leaguer? And if you do look to the domestic competition, are you a Eugene Galekovic guy or a Mitchell Langerak man? The combinations are endless.

Another major factor in selecting this specific team - as pointed out by my colleague Francis Leach in his article - is that there are huge injury clouds hanging over Vince Grella, Marco Bresciano and Harry Kewell. Verbeek goes to South Africa knowing he may need to call on some of his so-called "backups" to play starring roles. That could eliminate taking some youngsters (eg the exciting Tommy Oar) along just for the the ride.

However, if you stick with a veterans-only policy, you're potentially denying key future Socceroos valuable World Cup experience.

Goalkeepers: Schwarzer, of course, is a no-brainer. After that, Federici is in fine form at Reading and should be a capable no.2. I'd go with a kid - and Langerak's got a stack of potential - as my third keeper.

• Mark Schwarzer (Fulham)
• Adam Federici (Reading)
• Mitchell Langerak (Melbourne Victory)

Defenders: Neill, Moore, Luke Wilkshire and Scott Chipperfield are locks. Like Francis, I agree that Simon Colosimo is deserving of a spot. I went back and forth on the others, but decided to go with youngsters Rhys Williams and Matthew Spiranovic.

• Lucas Neill (Galatasaray)
• Craig Moore (Brisbane Roar)
• Luke Wilkshire (Dynamo Moscow)
• Scott Chipperfield (FC Basel)
• Simon Colosimo (Melbourne Heart)
• Matthew Spiranovic (Urawa Reds)
• Rhys Williams (Middlesbrough)

Midfielders: Again, five easy choices: Cahill, of course, and Bresicano, Grella, Emerton and Jason Culina. After that, I'm thinking more like Pim than Ed in going with David Carney and Brett Holman. I'd definitely take Oar, since I think he'll be an integral part of the next generation of Socceroos. And I'll add Jedinak, whose time in Turkey should prepare him for the rigours of a World Cup campaign.

• Tim Cahill (Everton)
• Marco Bresciano (Palermo)
• Vince Grella (Blackburn Rovers)
• Brett Emerton (Blackburn Rovers)
• Jason Culina (Gold Coast United)
• David Carney (FC Twente)
• Brett Holman (AZ Alkmaar)
• Tommy Oar (FC Utrecht)
• Mile Jedinak (Antalyaspor)

Forwards: No point taking too many, since you know Pim will only play one up front. Kewell and Kennedy are the main men, while Scott McDonald is the most questionable candidate: he's been prolific in Europe, but rarely does anything in the green and gold. That said, I like having him as an option. I'm afraid the final spot comes down to Nikita Rukavytsa and Dario Vidosic, and I'm going with Rukavytsa, partly because I want to hear the mainstream media guys pronounce it.

• Harry Kewell (Galatasaray)
• Josh Kennedy (Nagoya Grampus)
• Scott McDonald (Middlesbrough)
• Nikita Rukavytsya (Roeselare)