ROVERS' Australian duo, Brett Emerton and Vince Grella, have both been named in Australia's preliminary World Cup squad.

Pim Verbeek has named an initial 31-man squad which will be reduced down to the 23-man party at the beginning of June.

Australia have three friendly matches before the World Cup starts, with a 'local derby' against New Zealand in Melbourne on May 24th before they fly to South Africa and play friendly matches against Denmark and the USA on June 1st and 5th respectively.

Australia are in Group D along with Germany, Serbia and Ghana. Their opening game is against Germany in Durban on June 13th.