The Everton midfielder, still on the recovery trail after breaking a metatarsal in March, has only featured off the bench in the Socceroos' three Group B games.

But, having grabbed the crucial injury-time equaliser against Oman in the opener and then providing the crosses for Mark Viduka to head home two late goals during the 4-0 victory against Thailand, the 27-year-old is raring to tear into Japan from the first whistle in Hanoi.

"Of course I want to play. This is an emotional time to be playing Japan, which holds a lot of fond memories, so to get 90 minutes or to get any game-time would be excellent," he said.

"I have been starting off the bench, but the one good thing about the Australia team is that there are 23 players who love playing for their country so it doesn't matter if you start or come on, we are a team and we have to be united and stay together.

"It's an emotional game for both countries."

Similarities have instantly been drawn between the 2006 meeting at the Fritz Walter Stadion in Kaiserslautern, which saw Australia recover from Shunsuke Nakamura's first-half opener to secure a 3-1 victory courtesy of a late double from Cahill and a stoppage-time strike from fellow substitute John Aloisi.

Cahill, however, has played down talk of a re-match.

He said: "The game is seen as a big grudge match. They were unfortunate (at the World Cup), I had come on and John (Aloisi) had come on and we seemed to hit them at the right time and we got the goals.

"But this time it's going to be a special game. In a tournament like this where Japan have been made favourites because they won the last Asian Cup and we've been made favourites because we did so well at the World Cup, and we won that game. But we can't disregard the other teams in the tournament because whoever gets through this game they are still going to struggle to go on and win it.

"It's great to have won that game, but it's a whole different competition now and a whole different game and a few things have changed in their team and a few things have changed in ours. So I don't think it gives us the edge, for us we need to prepare diffidently because it's a different game in a different tournament.

"Japan have changed a lot of things in the way they have played in this tournament, they have played very well and won games emphatically.

"Japan have prepared differently, but their results speak for themselves and we have just go to adjust to the way tactically we have to play and they might have to change as well.

"I think we started off quite poorly and we've finally found our feet and we can only get stronger so it's going to be an interesting game.

"We know Nakamura and (Naohiro) Takahara, who are big names with great ability, but I think you can't disregard the fact that they've got a squad of great players with great technique and they play in Europe and in their own country so we've got great respect for their players and their team.

"They have done very well in the competition so far and we emphasise enough that it's going to be a very good game and they are a very tough team.

"This is probably the biggest game for us in the tournament and we have to go into it hoping to get a win because we didn't think we were going to play Japan this early in the tournament.

"But what better time to do it... if we are going to win this tournament we've got to play the best now so we are looking forward to it."