While Kewell continues to shrug off injury concerns, Culina said the Galatasaray star's creative flair and world class touch are assets too great for national coach Pim Verbeek to ignore.

"Harry is a great player and he has shown over the years how good he actually is and whether it's 75, 90 or 100 percent Harry will always contribute to the team," Culina said.

"But even if he is at 75 percent I think he's still a great asset to the team.

"He's always working extremely hard and he is one of those players who is always in the gym and doing his best to be out on the park and that's why he's such a good player.

"I think he'll be right this little setback is I think only short term, and hopefully he'll be there against New Zealand and the friendly match after that."

With Verbeek announcing his preliminary World Cup squad in Sydney on Tuesday, Culina also backed Kewell playing as Australia's target man upfront in the much debated lone striker role.

"I like him upfront because he's strong in the air and he's shown he can score goals with his head," Culina said.

"He's always prepared to get the ball. He wants the ball and he's always prepared to try something.

"He can drift out on the wings as well, that's his natural position out left, but I like him upfront...Pim's played him there a few times and I think he's done really well."

Expected to be Australia's only A-league-based player to feature in Verbeek's plans, Culina has been training in Holland for the past five weeks with former club PSV Eindhoven where he was under the watchful eye of Dutch fitness coach Luc van Agt.

Looking sharp as he re-united with his Gold Coast side on Monday, Culina admitted he was itching to play in the farewell game against New Zealand to get some much needed match experience after spending two months on the sidelines.

"I haven't played a game now for a couple of months so I'm looking forward to that New Zealand game especially," he said. "I'm going into camp next week and it's been a long time coming.

"I've been waiting for this for a long time and I think we're all really excited and we just can't wait to get going. Whatever I needed to do (whilst at PSV) I did and I actually did a little bit extra after training.

"I was working with the Dutch national team's physical trainer and he was pushing me quite hard. I just really enjoyed it and focused fully on training and that's why I went there and I got a lot from it."

Now four years older and wiser since their second round achievement back in Germany in 2006, all eyes will be firmly on the Socceroos to see if they can reproduce the effort with Australia's leg-speed coming under most scrutiny.

According to Culina the squad's camaraderie and experience will only add to their chances of progression, but the midfield maestro did acknowledge that it will be a massive test to overcome a gruelling first-round group.

"It's going to be a big ask we've got a very tough group in Germany, Serbia and Ghana," he said.

"It's not easy, no game is at the World Cup, but we are more experienced...we've been there before and we know what to expect this time."

"In saying that the other teams know what to expect from us as well, so in that respect it's going to be a little bit more difficult.

"I think it will be a huge achievement if we can make the second-round but it's going to be a tall order.

"We're always prepared to go out there and we believe that we are underdogs and every time we go out there we want to show everybody just how good we are.

"There isn't the pressure like the big nations have on their shoulders and we just want to go out there and do our best."