Frank Farina’s team was so strong that night in east London that star midfield duo of Mark Bresciano and Vince Grella were both consigned to starting off the bench against an England team boasting David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard.

On Saturday morning (AEST) at Wembley Stadium, Graham Arnold’s current Aussie iteration won’t feature a single EPL-based player - a stark reminder of how far the pendulum has swung since the heady days when the likes of Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Lucas Neill et al strutted English football’s greatest stage.

In a sign of the shifting sands, it’s now Scotland’s Premiership Arnold looks to first when naming his squads, with five players from north of the border in his 23 this week.

Despite the Socceroos’ rollicking ride to the last 16 at last year’s World Cup in Qatar, the nation is still viewed by many as a football backwater.

According to Socceroos assistant Rene Meulensteen a performance of substance against Gareth Southgate’s side will go a long way towards “changing people’s perceptions” of a team cast in the role battling underlings.

“It’s a special game for us - a first time playing England at Wembley and that’s symbolic,” the Dutchman told FTBL. “It’ll be interesting how England view it because they have a very important Euro 2024 qualifier against Italy four days later and may choose to rest a few players.

“That said, Gareth Southgate is blessed with so many great players he could field two world class first elevens.

“From our perspective, there’s an opportunity there to perhaps change a few people’s perceptions of us, and I can assure you despite that the fact this is a friendly you won’t see us holding back.

“Whenever Australia play England at anything there’s also that heightened desire to do well because bragging rights are at stake. This will be no different.

“We’re not too bothered what line up Southgate names - our attitude will be the same. 

“Whoever Gareth names those players will be doing their utmost to show they deserve to be in that starting lineup every time.”

With England trailing 2-0 at the interval at Upton Park all those years ago, Eriksson fielded an entirely new eleven for the second half, and still barely laid a glove on Australia, whose win that night evoked tabloid takedowns from the UK media with headlines screaming ‘Kanga-poo’ and ‘Shockeroos’.

“We’ve played quality teams like Ecuador, Argentina and Mexico since the World Cup and England are another in that vein,” added Meulensteen.

“I’ve said to Arnie, ‘after the game what do we want to leave behind?’.

“Obviously we want a good result but we also want a very good performance because that changes the way the public views you. That’s what we did at the World Cup and ever since.

“Yes, we lost 2-0 to Argentina in China but you take Lionel Messi out of that side and I think they’re very different.

The moment he steps away from international football, I think you’ll see the flow of goals begin to dry up.

“We’ve created a bit of an identity for ourselves. We’ve showed courage in our approach and need to continue that this week against England.

“For the players, what do they want to talk to their kids and grand kids about when they’ve retired? You want to talk about great and memorable moments and great performances.

“They’ll be 90,000 there at an iconic venue - you can’t get much better than that.”