The squad will meet for Niall Quinn's testimonial down the road at Sunderland, before travelling to Ireland to meet Nigeria.
McCarthy also revealed that he has only really started the scouting mission for the WC now that squads have been announced.
"I've had Germany, Cameroon and Saudi Arabia watched a number of times and I have videos to watch when we get out there," he said.
"I don't believe in doing it now and monitoring them for months beforehand and finding out the team is different when we get out there."