The Socceroos' arrival marks the first time the city's ramshackle Dolen Omurzakov Stadium has hosted big name foreign opposition since Spartak Moscow last played an exhibition match in 1997 – and Kyrgyzstan’s best weapon could be a bumpy and pot-holed pitch guaranteed to stifle Austraia's free-flowing style.
With a largely rural population of 5.5 million and an eight-team national competition which attracts mediocre crowds, the Central Asian republic - nestled between China to the east, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the south and Uzbekistan to the west - has never been ranked above 139 by FIFA since gaining its independence from Russia in 1991.
Outside the main cities of Bishkek, Osh and Jalal-Abad, traditional sports leave football in the shade, like the ancient art of goat polo or Kok-Boru – where teams of men on horseback battle to toss the carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat between two goalposts.
Suitably tenderised it is often consumed by the combatants.
A capacity crowd of 18,300 is expected to pack in to a stadium where on Sunday a truck was digging up mounds behind one of the goals, ill-secured seats were being re-painted, the goal mouths had bare patches and the brand new floodlights had yet to be road-tested.
All of which makes for a challenging environment for the Socceroos who have been training for the past week in pristine conditions in Dubai.
The temperature, at least, should be cooler, with around 16 degrees tipped for kick-off time.
In the former Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan competed under the name of Alga - and regularly topped the competition across the USSR. But success has been hard to come by since.
Kyrgyzstan - ranked 177 - got its World Cup campaign off to a promising start by beating Bangladesh 3-1 in Dhaka four days ago, and is on a relative high going into a match which kicks off at 8pm Tuesday local time (12am Wednesday, AEST).
The versatile Anton Zemlianukhin, who struck twice against Bangladesh and plays in Serbia for Radnicki Nis, is Kyrgyzstan’s best credentialed player along with Russia-based defender Valeriy Kichin, on loan at Russian National League club Tyumen from Anzhi Makhachkala.
At one of Bishkek's sports bars, football fan Ruslan Akimov explains: “Of course we will come to watch and we all hope that something special can happen and that we beat Australia.
“They are the biggest and best team to come here that anybody can remember and to beat them, well that would be a cause for big celebration.
“Realistically, we aren’t expecting that to happen. But we are a proud of our country and we have to believe in our players.”
Locals flock to watch the likes of Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester United and Russian Premier League in bars across the country – but don’t have quite the same appreciation for their local competition, which this season saw FC Dordoi crowned champion.
“We always tend to look outside our country for football because we are only small on the map,” Akimov said.
“But we are improving all the time now under our new coach (36-year-old Russian Aleksandra Krestinin).
“Can you imagine, if he can lead us to victory over Australia. Anything is possible.”
