Socceroos must accept Asian Cup champion status, says Mark Milligan

Captain Mark Milligan says the youthful Socceroos must embrace their status as reigning Asian Cup champions against opponents eager to claim their scalp in the United Arab Emirates.

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A tricky group stage bodes Australia well to advance deep into the Asian Cup, according to Mark Milligan.

But the Socceroos captain says they’ll have to start accepting their status as reigning champions against opponents eager to show them the exit in the United Arab Emirates.

The trophy defence continues for Graham Arnold’s youthful squad, who’ve overcome a poor start and stepped up in the absence of several key players.

Milligan knows the Socceroos have a target on their back. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

Group B, which was supposed to be a straightforward assignment, came full of potholes in the form of a complacent 1-0 loss to Jordan, a rebound against a similarly defensive Palestine, and a precarious final encounter with a feverish Syria.

And in the background, first-team players kept dropping like flies as injury claimed Andrew Nabbout and Josh Risdon and Tom Rogic battled a broken hand along with knee and ankle injuries.

Milligan framed the challenges as invaluable for a young team with little tournament experience as they build towards a round-of-16 clash with either Uzbekistan or Japan in Al Ain on Monday.

Australia should revel in the weight of being champions. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

“Massively,” he said.

“It will help a lot. We showed at the end of this game that when we do stick to our principles we get rewards for it. That was very important.

“It was a good game for us because there were times when we were against the wall and dealing with different things.

“We take a lot from that experience, because these are things you can’t replicate at training. These are things you can only get by playing games.

“You always want to learn your lessons while you’re winning, so that was important for us. There were a lot of good things.

“We’ve got a bit of a break now to fine tune and get ready, but we know we have it in us to go deep into this tournament.”

Sainsbury’s return is a major boost. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Trent Sainsbury, suspended against Syria, is now available again while Mat Leckie and Risdon could be pushing to return from injury.

By backward virtue of that first-out wobble against Jordan, the Socceroos have ended up on the favourable side of the draw, though Japan looms next if the Samurai Blue do not beat Uzbekistan tonight to finish top of Group F.

Regardless of the opponent, Milligan said the mentality must be that every rival will lift against Australia given their 2015 success.

“We knew Syria were going to come out strong with a change of coach,” he said.

“They had a disappointing start, and to be honest we need to start accepting the fact we’re the reigning champions and everybody does want to knock us off.

“We need to weather that storm early on. For the most part when we started playing we did well.”

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Originally published as Socceroos must accept Asian Cup champion status, says Mark Milligan