It was announced on Sunday that the 2016 golden boot winner would wear the armband as the successor to now retired Patrick Kisnorbo.

City has a total of nine players in their first team under the age of 25 and Cahill backed Fornaroli to step up into a leadership role.

Cahill also made himself available to lead along with the other senior players in the squad, drawing comparisons to his experience in the Socceroos and believed Fornaroli had a good understanding of the squad.

“What I’ll create behind him is a leadership group with Tommy Sorensen, Michael Jakobsen, Luke Brattan and Neil Kilkenny," Cahill said.

"A strong basis that supports Bruno as a captain, responsibility with an armband is a big thing, for me I never needed an armband to captain a team, so Bruno knows he can call me on anytime.

“Even in the Socceroos, Mile Jedinak and Mark Milligan, we’ve got a strong affinity that we take care of each other, the young players and you lead together, so I think it’s good for Bruno because we talk about marquees.

“It’s important we start using our top quality imports as main players, investments into these players, young Australians and I challenge people to look at Bruce Kamau and our Australian talent that’s already inside and activating them to the public, so they understand what’s actually here.

"I’m a big supporter of Bruno and I’m really happy for him.”

Cahill will be unavailable for the Round One away clash against Wellington Phoenix as he travels to Jeddah with the Socceroos to take on Saudi Arabia to continue the final phase of World Cup qualification.

His absence means his A-League debut will most likely be against cross-town rival Melbourne Victory the following round and would mark his return to Australian domestic football since leaving for then League Two side Millwall in 1997.

The Socceroo is relishing the challenge of the A-League and acknowledged a cluster of teams could be in contention for the Championship this season using reigning champions Adelaide United and their faltering start to last season as an example.

“I’m new to the league, I've been away from the A-League and Australia for a long time, but I think it’s a great example of a club like Adelaide to do what they’ve done," he said.

"Quiet achievers who stuck together and they produced something quite amazing in this league.

“With all the top teams in the league, it’s going to be a difficult one for us this year, but overall I think it’s just going to be an educational period for myself personally learning about the league and just focusing on Melbourne City and what we can do is the best thing for my football club.”

Cahill has so far played two competitive games for City in the FFA Cup, a 2-1 debut win away to Brisbane Strikers in the Round of 16 and subsequently a 4-1 thumping over Western Sydney Wanderers in the final eight in his first game at AAMI Park.

It was announced last night the semi-final of the cup will be a Melbourne derby as the draw was conducted straight after Victory’s 2-0 win over Bentleigh Greens.

Cahill said he was happy for the fixture, but all focus was on the beginning of the A-League and felt confident after their convincing collective performance over the Wanderers last Wednesday.

“I think everyone knows Popa’s (Wanderers coach Tony Popovic) teams, you see what he’s done over the past years in the A-League and how he’s dominated, not only domestically, but also with the Asian Champions League,” he said.

“There’s got to be a high level of intensity, so not going blind into that game I think they got caught a bit cold from us, we have a young team with eight new players, obviously we had a few bad results in our friendlies.

“Trial games are there to prepare and have those rotations and have different formations, but when it comes to game time it’s all business and I think when we played that night, we needed to see where we were at physically, mentally as a team and we can work off a basis.

“Like I say to the players, we just focus on ourselves regardless of semi-finals and things like this.

"Our players need to understand it’s a game at a time and all of us as a group will contribute every game to be available for selection for the second game, so the foundations have been set, but it’s going to be exciting and the competitiveness to play for our team.”