Australia coach Ange Postecoglou says that his team's underwhelming performance as they drew 0-0 against European minnows Macedonia in Skopje on Monday night is all part of a learning curve for the recently crowned Asian champions.
The Socceroos extended their unbeaten streak to five matches, but created few clear cut chances against the Balkan nation, who are 108th in the FIFA rankings.
It was a far less impressive display from the visitors than their inspiring 2-2 draw against world champions Germany last week.
"We just got a bit frustrated but again another bit of a learning curve there," Postecoglou told SBS. "We needed to get some more international experience into these guys and especially for some of them, tonight will be good.
"That's what friendly games are for, you have to sacrifice sometimes the fluidity of the game just to make sure the players continue to progress."
The former Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar head coach added that a bumpy playing surface at the National Arena Prince Phillip II made it tough for his side to play attractive football.
"It was a challenging night for us, the conditions made it difficult," he said. "Obviously with the pitch not being conducive to us moving the ball around.
"I thought we started well but we got a bit frustrated because we didn't create a lot of chances and we started forcing things. Hopefully in future, in this kind of game, we can deal with that kind of frustration a little better."
In a side with six changes, Postecoglou gave Melbourne City midfielder Aaron Mooy his first full start and handed a debut to Adelaide United utility player Tarek Elrich, younger brother of ex-Socceroo and Fulham winger Ahmad Elrich.
"I thought Aaron was good, Tarek Elrich also handled himself really well... Bailey Wright came on and looked comfortable so, that's massive positives for us."
The Socceroos will now wait to find out who they'll play in their opening 2018 AFC World Cup qualifier. The game, away from home, will be played on Jun. 14 with the draw taking place in Kuala Lumpur next month.
Postecoglou says the two Europe friendlies -- the last international action for his team until the June qualifier -- have set things up well for the rest of the year when talisman Tim Cahill is expected to return to the side. The Shanghai Shenhua forward missed the games against Germany and Macedonia because of a hamstring injury.
"We're certainly well advanced to where we were last year," he said. "We battled for survival against Belgium and again the Saudis (in London last year) and we weren't really fluent.
"Now you can see -- two games in Europe away from home at proper venues -- and for different reasons I thought we got good outcomes."