And so the day finally dawns.

After months of speculation and calculation, fantasy football dreaming and doomsday voodoo scenarios, the Socceroos are left to their own devices today to stare down one of the World's footballing giants - Germany.

As thousands of Australian fans gather up their swags and hit the road to Durban for Sunday evenings clash here in South Africa, they do so with an air of apprehension. The rather subdued mood is unlike the usually robust optimism and esprit de corp of previous campaigns.

On the morning of that famous victory of Japan in Kaiserslautern four years ago, the sense was that anything was possible. That day, the Socceroos' destiny was to defy the limited horizions drawn for them by history. They did indeed redraw the map for Australian football with that stunning come from behind win, with six minutes of magic that ignited a fairytale campaign.

As Pim Verbeek spends this last restless night before the moment of truth, he must know that it's unlikely that the football gods will grant his wish that the magic of that day be revisited on African shores. This time for years on, with virtually the same squad at his disposal, he will need to find another more pragmatic way to take something from the Germans.

And it's exactly what he has been preparing them to do for the better part of the last two years.

Verbeek is diving into the unknown on many fronts today.

Will Harry Kewell still have one last grand moment in his battle scared body? Will the experience of Craig Moore and Lucas Neill be enough to compensate for ageing legs? Have Vince Grella and Mark Bresciano found the zest in their passing and movement to match their uncompromising will to win?

The Australians can take heart from the performance of the USA and South Africa in their opening group games that in the merciless cauldron of World Cup finals football, reputations count for little. Both England and Mexico were expected to have the measure of their opponents, but came away sharing the spoils and reassessing their campaigns.

It's a blueprint for how the Socceroos need to approach the game against Germany. Giants can fall, especially one whose coach, Joachim Low, has all but dismissed the Socceroos as gallant, hard working and honest, but with little to offer other than sweat and toil.

For Low and his team, this game represents a nuisance to be negotiated. For the Socceroos, many of whom can now see the road map to their footballing mortality laid out before them, this is now or never. And if that sense of urgency is brought to Durban today then that hackneyed old retail cliché might well still ring true.

That nothing is impossible.