Australia to play World Cup warm up against Singapore

Australia will play a friendly against Singapore later this month to prepare for a 2010 World Cup qualifier against China.

Still smarting from their premature exit from last year's Asian Cup, Australia will play Singapore on March 22 as part of a five-day training camp to acclimatise for the qualifier against China four days later.

"We want to play as many matches as we can against teams from Asia and, with Singapore also in the process of attempting to qualify for the World Cup, it is a perfect opponent for us," Australia coach Pim Verbeek said in a statement.

"Once the match is over I will then decide who will make the final squad for the trip to China."

Australia made a strong start to their World Cup campaign when they beat Qatar 3-0 in Melbourne last month but expect a tougher time in their away matches after a humbling debut at the Asian Cup last year.

The Australians, who switched from Oceania to Asia in search of tougher competition, went into the tournament as one of the favourites but bowed out at the quarter-final stage to Japan after struggling to make it past the pool phase.