Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek believes his young and inexperienced A-League players will benefit greatly from their shock loss to Kuwait.
While disappointed at the fact Australia have picked up just one point from their first two 2011 Asian Cup qualifiers, Verbeek was taking some positives out of Thursday night’s performance at Canberra Stadium.
The Dutchman fielded a youthful side that included Adelaide defender Daniel Mullen, Queensland winger Michael Zullo and Central Coast striker Matt Simon, while he also handed debuts to Mitch Nichols, Fabian Barbiero and Robert Cornthwaite in the second half.
While acknowledging his side would need to improve significantly when Asian Cup qualifying resumes at home to Oman on November 14, Verbeek was confident it would happen.
“We have to improve and we have to wait six months, so we have time enough to improve I think,” Verbeek said.
“Let’s wait for the coming months and see what is going to happen and see how the players are going to pick it up.
“There’s some quite young players and, okay we play to win, but it’s a great experience and they have to learn and the only way to learn is to make mistakes.
“Pity it’s a qualification game, better they make mistakes in a friendly match and then you can work on it, but now we know we have two games played and one point.”
While Verbeek’s opinion on the standard of the A-League has been a hot topic since his appointment, he took several opportunities this week to clarify his stance.
Again after Thursday night’s loss, he maintained he still had faith in his domestic based players and said was simply being honest about how all players needed to improve.
“I have to be fair, I’m very surprised by all the reactions because I didn’t say anything wrong,” Verbeek said.
“Sometimes I’m just honest.
“I still think we have good players talented players here, but they need experience, they need a bigger league … they need more international experience, so they still have to make improvement.
“Not just the A-league players but same with our big players, they want to improve every day, even if you play at Everton, Liverpool or Blackburn Rovers.
“…That’s all I wanted to say, if you want to improve you to have to know what you have to improve and that’s not criticism that’s just facts.
The result left Australia bottom of their qualifying group, while 125th-ranked Kuwait moved up into second, one point behind leaders Oman.
But Kuwait coach Goran Tufegdzic was not ready to speculate that the Socceroos could fail to finish in the top two and miss qualification for the 2011 tournament in Qatar.
“There is too many more matches, everything now is open,” Tufegdzic said.
Socceroos captain Craig Moore was forced off in the second half of the loss with a hamstring problem but now has several weeks of time to recover for Australia’s World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan in Sydney on April 1.
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