Players, coaches and staff, check. Media, check, and fans, triple-check. But there's one Aussie presence missing out in Russia that's gone a little under the radar.
Mark Shield - 2002 and 2006
Around the time that Chris Bambridge was frustrating Spain at Mexico '86, a football-mad 12 year-old lad in Brisbane had begun reffing junior games.
It wasn't the way Mark Shield had first intended to spend his evenings after school - he had been a player for local team Innisfail Tigers, but was unable to keep pace with the technical development of his teammates. If he'd ever dreamed of one day lacing up his boots and gracing the World Cup, though, those hopes would still be realised - and not just once, but twice.
Having begun refereeing National Soccer League games aged just 22 and gaining seven seasons of experience, he was summoned off to South Korea and Japan to officiate the 2002 World Cup. At 28, he was the youngest of the 36 referees at the tournament by four years.
His only game in the tournament, a 1-1 group stage draw between Tunisia and Belgium in Oita, Japan, was completely unremarkable - just the way any referee overseeing his first match in front of the world would have it.
The number of referees was sliced almost in half at Germany 2006 - from an excessive 36 to 21 - and as a consequence, Shield was assigned two matches.
The first was another Tunisia draw, an entertaining 2-2 with Saudi Arabia at the one year-old new home of Bayern Munich, the Allianz Arena. He was far from the only Australian in town that week as the Socceroos played Brazil in Group F on the same stretch of turf four days later.
This was also the first World Cup in which officials worked in three-man teams who were, mostly, from the same nation. Shield's linesmen were fellow Aussies Nathan Gibson and Ben Wilson, and they returned to over see a 1-1 draw between tournament debutants Angola and Iran in Leipzig.
An awkward and slightly amusing moment came after 22 minutes, when Shield was forced to mercilessly book Angola defender Loco as the poor sod was leaving the pitch on a stretcher, having hurt himself making a clumsy tackle.
Shield's tournament ended in the role of the fourth official for the semi-final between Portugal and France, in which Zinedine Zidane struck the winner - his last goal for Les Bleus.
Further career highlights were still to come for Shield. He oversaw the second leg of the 2006 AFC Champions League final and the 2007 Asian Cup final, entered the FFA Hall of Fame in 2010 and became Australia's national Director of Referees, overseeing training and match appointments.
In 2012 he left football altogether - professionally, at least. In briefly giving playing another try in Mackay for Dolphins FC, Shield had come full circle - only this time, he didn't have to worry about his teammates leaving him behind.
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