(Ian Hay is a BPL Citizen Journalist and editor of the sports blog, http://therowzview.blogspot.com)

The Socceroos will be looking to exorcise the ghosts of World Cups past on March 29 when they travel to Germany to play the world's No.3 ranked team and perennial football heavyweights, for a friendly match in Mönchengladbach.

The match will provide the Socceroos with the opportunity to redress the 4-0 drubbing handed out to them in their opening game of the 2010 World Cup in Durban which all but extinguished Australia's chances of progression to the next phase.

Whilst the result on that June day last year was greeted with a great deal of disappointment back home, that in itself was testament to the great strides that Australian football has been making on the international stage over the past few years.

Less than 7 years ago, in May 2004, Australia was ranked a lowly 89th in the FIFA World rankings sandwiched down between Turkmenistan and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. They had not played in the World Cup Finals for 30 years and amazingly they would have even been ranked the 17th best team in their current Asian federation . Australia has been able to progress dramatically since these lows and has been able to cement a place in the World Top 40 and have qualified, and performed very credibly, at the last two World Cups, with the real prospect of regular qualification in the future.

The problem that this rapid rise has created for the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) is that the public, based on this recent progress, now have an unrealistic expectation, as evidenced in the aftermath of that World Cup defeat, that Australia should now be competitive with the likes of Germany and Brazil. Unfortunately the harsh reality is somewhat different.

In Euro 2004 Greece proved that a well drilled and coached team that stick to a specific game plan can obtain results and achieve tournament success, irrespective of their FIFA rating. Australia under their recent coaching regime share a lot of those Greek attributes but they need to be careful not to delude themselves that they are ready to join the footballing elite.

They do have a selection of reasonable, overseas experienced, players and, particularly in 2006, were a very well coached unit, but if the team components are broken down it is evident that their fans should not yet expect them to be in the elite of world football.

Their previous coach, Pim Verbeek, decided to leave to further his career by becoming the National Youth Technical Director of, all places, Morocco and their best players are hardly in the Superstar bracket. Tim Cahill, who is currently regarded as Australia's most influential player, plays for unglamorous Everton, a team that is perennially in the 2nd tier of teams in the English Premiership League, caught in the no-man's land of not being relegated but not qualifying for European tournaments either.

Other key players? Schwarzer, solid goalkeeper in the twilight of his career who, although coming close in 2009 with Arsenal, never got to play for an elite club. Kewell, who as a youngster was widely regarded as one of the future world stars of the game, has never truly reproduced his Leeds form since leaving in 2003. After that the squad comprises of solid journeymen and promising youngsters from around the lesser known clubs of World football.

Australia is a country with a rich and successful sporting heritage where winning in sports as diverse as cricket, rugby, cycling, swimming is almost assumed, but the truth that needs to be embraced by supporters of the game in Australia in order not to overburden the Socceroos with an unnecessary level of expectation, is that the Socceroos are a good but unremarkable team on the World stage. A team that is also, undeniably, on the up in World football. Ask yourself, if Cahill and Lucas Neill were true world-class players would they have spent their careers at teams like Millwall, Blackburn, West Ham and Everton rather than been playing in the Champions League?

In the same manner as the rise of African and Asian nations, Australian football is on the upward trend and the world game will only be enhanced with another region being well represented but the public must have patience in allowing their team to develop to a position where they are truly competitive against opponents like Germany.

Football powerhouses such as Holland have never won the World Cup; Spain won it for the first time in 2010 after having generations of star players pass through teams such as Real Madrid and Barcelona. The Jules Rimet Trophy may never have Australian hands on it, but the chances of it happening will not be enhanced unless the public are realistic with their expectations and allow the team to progress at its existing pace and not demand instant success. For they will be disappointed. There is no fast track to World Cup success.

If you were wondering: Turkmenistan is now ranked 133 in the world. So Australia really hasn't been doing that bad at all.