WATCH: Aaron Mooy and Australia step up preparations on eve of 2018 World Cup

Huddersfield Town star Aaron Mooy and national side Australia have begun stepping up their preparations for the 2018 World Cup .

The Socceroos flew to their Kazan training base from Budapest on Monday, June 11 and have begun building up to their first match of the tournament.

That comes against France on Saturday, June 16 (11am kick off), when the Aussies will have to be at their top level to upset the Group C favourites.

In order to prepare for the clash with the Antoine Griezmann-led French, the Australian played two warm-up matches before flying to Russia, beating both the Czech Republic and Hungary.

After arriving in the host nation however, it has been back to training for the Socceroos, with Mooy and his team mates given a just one afternoon to settle in to the training base.

More than 3,000 local fans watched the Australians' first open training session at Stadium Trudovye Rezervy later, with the atmosphere pleasing to Mooy's international team mates.

Striker Jamie Maclaren told socceroos.com.au : “Landing here with the fantastic reception and the [accommodation] is fantastic, the boys are happy and that’s important when the team is all happy and confident.

“We had our first session today which was great.

“The whole wrap of it, walking out today there were 3,000 fans. Me and Dimi [Petratos] had a joke when we were walking around the field that now it feels like a World Cup.

“Obviously it’s the first that we have experienced, and you want to soak every minute up but we also know that there is a job at hand and we look forward to France.”

The Australians have also posed for their official team photo for the tournament and have been taking part in entertaining training sessions revolving around shooting in order to freshen them up for their opening fixture.

Previously, manager Bert van Marwijk had the Socceroos focusing on defensive shape during their three-week training camp in Turkey prior to arriving in Russia.