Having beaten Turkiye in their opener, the Socceroos were beaten by co-host United States on matchday two, meaning there was a bit riding on Friday's (AEST) clash at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium.

It was far from a classic, and Australia has been kept goalless in back-to-back matches within a single FIFA World Cup for the first time since 1974, while two goals throughout the group stage equals its fewest in a pool since not scoring any in 1974.

But head coach Popovic is only interested in looking forward to the knockout stages.

"The staff, the players – just a wonderful young group of men – and now we go to Dallas and we'll try and do something special," he said.

"You can have opinions on how the game was played, or what we both thought we needed, but we at no stage felt that we were playing for a draw. I thought we controlled the game quite well, and were in control, and had the better opportunities.

"I'd like to think that we dominated the game in a crucial [FIFA] World Cup qualifier with a very young squad in the third match, when everything's on the line, and the players showed composure, patience, quality, and resilience.

"Overall we deserved it. We were very good today."

Popovic made six changes to his starting 11 in a bold shake-up, bringing back livewire Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe, while adding Cristian Volpato to his forward line in a signal of attacking intent.

But he steered away from commenting on those changes, instead insisting that every player is important to the cause.

The changes came after he was roundly criticised for benching Irankunda and Metcalfe for the 2-0 defeat against United States, with both having scored goals in the 2-0 win over Turkey.

Paraguay is almost certain to make it through with Australia, as one of the eight best third-place teams, having accumulated four points from its games.

Head coach Gustavo Alfaro praised his side for bouncing back from its defeat to United States.

"Recovering from such a hard result was really hard for us, and in spite of that, our team has been very solid in the past two games," he said.

However, Alfaro called for more space between the pitch and the advertising hoardings, after Julio Enciso clattered into them when battling Alessandro Circati.

"I think that maybe if there was more space that will be good because of course there's a lot of intensity when we are playing, and sometimes if a player gets destabilised, he could fall and get injured and these things can happen," Alfaro said. 

"So, maybe we have to think about that and reassess."