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The Socceroos have been in a training camp in Melbourne for a week and will be the first team to arrive in South Africa ahead of the showpiece tournament, with the exception of the host nation.

Twenty-eight players have made the journey with the official squad to be cut back to 23 on June 1.

And coach Pim Verbeek believes Harry Kewell will be ready to partake in full training sessions with his team-mates within a week and has described the striker's recovery from a groin injury as going perfectly to plan.

Kewell didn't train with his team-mates ahead of Monday's friendly against New Zealand but took a giant step on Tuesday when he trained with several players in the aftermath of that match.

Verbeek described Kewell as being close to 100 percent fit, saying he should be ready to resume full contact training ahead of the June friendly against Denmark.

"He trained with the players who didn't play on Monday or train that much the last week," Verbeek said.

"He did the whole training session. Harry is physically almost 100 percent. We will work a few days individually with him and we will expect him very soon (to be) in the training with the rest of the team."

"His progression is as planned. It's going perfect and he knows it, and we all know it, so that's good."

Verbeek expects to have 27 players ready to train morning and afternoon when the team lands in South Africa on Thursday.

"Except Harry, we expect everybody on the field on the 27th. That means full training session from the first training session to the finish," he said.

Brett Emerton has struggled to get regular training time in the lead-up to the Socceroos' departure for South Africa, but Verbeek has backed the Blackburn midfielder's residual fitness to carry him through.

"The only one who had a little problem on Tuesday was Brett Emerton. But we don't take any risks with Brett. Even if he didn't do that much at this moment, he is one of our most fittest players. We don't need to worry that much about his physical fitness," he said.

Meanwhile, Verbeek revealed that the Socceroos' flat performance against the All Whites on Monday was probably due to the fact that they had been trained extra hard in the lead-up to their departure for South Africa on Wednesday.

"If it was a game where I was worried about the result, then I should not have let them train so hard. That's the conclusion I made," said the coach.

"I think we did very well this week, but it's just because of the physical fitness, they were not as sharp as they should have been normally."

But Verbeek said that the intense training regime at this stage was necessary with preparation having to be taken more carefully when the players arrive at their Johannesburg training base, which is at 1700m above sea level.

"We are taking players to altitude, which is a different way of training. We have to the first three or four days be a bit careful with the players, so we try to so as much as possible, basic physical condition training in the days we had here," he said

.The Australian team's training base will be initially at St Stithians School in suburban Johannesburg with the team to stay in a luxury hotel in the wealthy suburb of Sandton.

A week out from the tournament, the Socceroos will move to Kloofzicht Lodge, a secluded resort located about 100km from Johannesburg and they will then train at Ruimsig Stadium for the duration of the tournament.

The farewell ceremony at Melbourne Airport included speeches from FFA chief executive Ben Buckley, coach Pim Verbeek, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce and Victorian premier John Brumby.

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