Everton star Tim Cahill says he will try to divide his loyalties between his club and his country.

The attacking midfielder, who is struggling slightly with a knee injury, is in his hometown of Sydney preparing for Australia's international friendly with Paraguay tomorrow and admits he would love to be able to keep playing at the highest level for both the Socceroos and the Toffees.

"It's hard and it's up to the manager and obviously we have good personnel who can hopefully do a great job against Paraguay, but if everything goes well this week then I have every possible chance," Cahill said.

"It's all right. I trained today (Thursday) and I had a good run-out.

"The thing is I'm not one to dramatise about injuries and things like that. The only thing is sometimes you have to think about the bigger picture.

"This is a friendly and I'm back here to show my commitment to the team and the players.

"There's so many players here who want to start and everyone's fighting for a spot, but I've got a massive derby to go back to as well [Everton play Liverpool on 17th October].

"I wanted to basically make sure that my country's just the biggest priority and Everton is as well.

"It's hard to try to keep everything level pegging but you can't keep everyone happy and the thing is Everton know that I give everything to them and so do Australia."