Australia open their World Cup campaign against France in Kazan on Saturday night (8pm AEST) and Les Bleus are expected to win comfortably.

Goalkeeper Mathew Ryan revealed van Marwijk was talking about Atletico in preparation for the World Cup.

Atletico finished second in La Liga last season and France have two of their players in their squad – Antoine Griezmann and Lucas Hernandez.

The talk coming from camp was breaking teams down collectively and Irvine indicated the Atletico connection made sense.

“Anyone who’s watched Ateltico in the past years can see how structured and disciplined they are in their shape, it doesn’t really change against their opposition,” Irvine said on Wednesday.

“It’s the way it’s engrained in them, to be able to press and be organised in that way. I think that’s the main thing he’s tried to get into us as a squad, if you get it right then it means you don’t have to adapt to the opposition.

“You can do it against any structure and shape. It’s all about distances, communication and making sure you close lines. Atletico are one of the best in the world at it, it’s tough to get right.

“We think we’ve got a very close structure in place that’s going to be capable of getting results in this tournament.

“We’re fortunate in our squad to have a number of players that have different qualities in the attacking third and all over the pitch.

“We can use our own individual strengths and myself, maybe there are parts of my game that are different. Maybe my energy and running in-behind offers something different.

“You have to use your own individual qualities to try and persuade the manager to get out there on the pitch and affect the game.”

Irvine also said van Marwijk was trying to build a culture of winning mentality in the squad.

The 25-year-old also said last year it was time to get rid of the “little Australia” mindset when facing world class opposition.

Griezmann and Steven N’Zonzi faced the media in Moscow yesterday and just one question was asked about the Socceroos between the pair.

However, Irvine was unfazed about the lack of interest from the French press.

“We saw it last year at the Confederations Cup after the Brazil game, we showed no fear against these top nations and we came out fighting against the best teams,” he said.

“We’re going to have to show that again on Saturday. All these things that happened with other teams like press conferences, we don’t really pay much attention to that.

“We’re focused on ourselves and as I said, we’re planning to play in a way where the opposition, it’s not going to matter the way they play and the way they approach it because we’re going to have our structures and it’s more important about what we do here.”