To see all the glamour of the awards...

Cahill, who has been plagued by a knee injury in recent weeks, moved freely at training on Thursday afternoon and remains hopeful of taking his place in the starting side.

"It's hard and it's up to the manager and obviously we have good personnel who can hopefully do a great job against Paraguay, but if everything goes well this week then I have every possible chance," Cahill said at the Australian Football Awards last night.

"It's alright, I trained today and I had a good run out. The thing is I'm not one to dramatise about injuries and things like that. The only thing is sometimes you have to think about the bigger picture.

"This is a friendly and I'm back here to show my commitment to the team and the players.

"There's so many players here who want to start and everyone's fighting for a spot, but I've got a massive derby to go back to as well and even with the way the schedule's gone and the points that we've got with Everton.

"I wanted to basically make sure that my country's just the biggest priority and Everton is as well. It's hard to try and keep everything level pegging but you can't keep everyone happy and the thing is Everton know that I give everything to them and so do Australia."

Meanwhile, Cahill was among the winners at the Australian Football Awards in Sydney on Thursday night after he was voted Australia's most outstanding international player for 2009-10 by the Football Media Association (FMA) of Australia.

"I suppose it's a bit of a surprise but the good thing is it's nice to be recognised from the media and (for them) to appreciate you because to win over the media sometimes is very hard," the Everton star said of the award.

"My biggest goal is to work with these guys to help the game and there's no one better that likes constructive criticism like myself when I play bad.

"I'm very proud and it means a lot because sometimes for players you think things go unnoticed and you try your hardest to convince people that you're trying to do the right (thing) for the game."

Asked the highlight of a successful 12 months on the international stage, the 30-year-old replied: "I think coming back from getting a red card (in the opening match of the World Cup) and then playing against Serbia and getting the three points.

"It's always the icing on the cake to score but also to try and take a red card on the chin ... that was probably the biggest moment because that was my second World Cup and it seemed like we nearly missed the boat but overall it was a success."

To see all the glamour of the awards...