WHEN Australia qualified for the World Cup after drawing 0-0 with Qatar, Bahrain’s national coach Czech Milan Macala praised Australia's toughness and assigned it to our contact sport culture.

"Football is not No.1, but players come to Europe with this rugby courage, this fighting spirit and they are getting more clever," he said.

Could it be this same culture that delivers so many high quality goalkeepers relative to other positions across the park? While commentators such as Arsene Wenger have noted Australia's lack of depth across the ground there is a battle brewing between the men aiming to succeed Mark Schwarzer.

Behind Mark Schwarzer stands Michael Petkovic, Brad Jones, Adam Federici and Ante Covic as potential replacements.

In the Championship, former Olyroo keeper Adam Federici bided his time behind Reading's long term goalkeeper and US international Marcus Hahnemann by winning Southend United's player of the month in October while out on loan to the League One side and earned a call up to the Socceroos for his efforts.

On his return to Reading Federici seized his opportunity when Hahnemann was injured and played in a run of form that saw the team to the Championship's automatic promotion place on the table. During his run of 15 games Federici also scored an injury time equaliser for Reading against Cardiff City.

Federici's form kept Hahnemann on the bench until he was dropped in mid March when Reading started to slip back down the table. Coach Steve Coppell explained his decision; "I felt terrible telling Fedders that he wasn't playing because he'd done nothing wrong. He's played well for us, but I just thought that Marcus's extra experience would help us at this stage of the season."

Reading's terrible form at home, where they hadn't won since January, continued all the way through to the playoffs and prompted a clean out at the club. Apart from coach Steve Coppell, Marcus Hahnemann was released leaving Federici in prime position to stake his claim as the club's number one goalkeeper while new boss Brendan Rodgers aims to take Reading back into the top league.

While Adam Federici shone in League One and the Championship, Brad Jones battled away with Middlesbrough in the Premier League. After a finger injury early in the season, Jones sat on the bench and watched rival Ross Turnbull, who himself has been noted as a future English goalkeeper.

Jones eventually seized his chance in late January when Turnbull was dropped and he produced a string of fine performances, including a clean sheet against Liverpool, giving his club hope in avoiding the drop.

It wasn't to be for Middlesbrough and Jones himself was liable with some goalkeeping errors that saw them out of the FA Cup against Everton and then out of the Premier League after Jones let in a soft goal against West Ham.

Jones's experience in goal against the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool however earned him a call up to the Socceroos squad for the World Cup qualifiers in June in place of Adam Federici. The battle between these two looms as the most intriguing.

While Michael Petkovic is sprouting a few more grey hairs than Brad Jones and Adam Federici, at 33 years old he is entering prime goalkeeping years by Schwarzer's standards and will have a significant claim to the goalkeeping slot come the 2010 World Cup.

Petkovic kept a run of clean sheets for Turkish Super Lig team Sivasspor that almost saw the underdogs from outside Istanbul claim the trophy. This was achieved against the likes of the Socceroos' own up-and-coming stars in Bruce Djite, Mile Jedinak, and James Troisi, not to mention Harry Kewell. The highlight of Petkovic's season may well have been a string of three penalty saves during a penalty shootout against Kewell's Galatasaray in the Turkish Cup.

For those that may question the standards in the Turkish competition, it should be noted that the Turks played through to the semi finals of the Euro Championship 2008 and they deserved to lose that game to the Germans even less than the Socceroos deserved to lose to the Italians in 2006.

Almost as good an indicator of the quality of these players is the fact that it is Mark Schwarzer who is holding them out. Fulham's player of the 2008/09 season and Australia's footballer of the year is in the finest form of a great career.

It was not always that way though. Schwarzer spent much of the 90s as second or third choice keeper behind Mark Bosnich and wasn't even selected in the squad during Terry Venables's failed 1998 World Cup bid. It wasn't until Bosnich's snubbing by Alex Ferguson and his white powder-inspired disintegration at Chelsea that Schwarzer earned his place in the first team and even then the shadow of the immensely talented Bosnich loomed over his performances.

As Bosnich's shadow melted away in the wake of his self-destruction, the giant gangly shadow of Zeljko Kalac loomed. ‘Spider' was a man the crowds wanted to love who played in a league that some say was even better than the English Premier League.

With the Socceroos' World Cup qualifier against Uruguay in Sydney heading towards penalties, Guus Hiddink had Spider warming up on the sidelines. Spider had outperformed Schwarzer during penalty shoot outs at training and one sensed his time as the national hero could be looming.

Spider was robbed of that moment however as Brett Emerton succumbed to injury during extra time and Hiddink used the last of his replacements to send out Josip Skoko. The rest is history as Schwarzer became a national hero and Kalac later became the devil in the World Cup game against Croatia.

These battles are what have made Schwarzer the goalkeeper he is today and while the upcoming battle for the Socceroos number one goalkeeper may not turn out to be as bitchy or dramatic as Spider and Schwarzer (although that wouldn't be a bad thing), fortunately for the Socceroos it is going to be just as intense.