Postecoglou’s change from his usuall 4-3-3 to the 3-4-3 during the the last two World Cup qualifiers had many questioning the Socceroos boss’s new formation and the timing of it.

After last week’s 2-0 win over UAE, talk prompted the Socceroos boss to say if he was a foreign coach they would have called him a genius.

At event hosted by the Australasian Football Institute in Sydney last night, Postecoglou echoed his belief that Australians suffer from a cultural cringe.  

“We admire these innovations that happen overseas,” he said.

“Conte goes to a back three in the English Premier League and turns it upside down. Pep goes and plays possession based attacking football and we admire all these things and yet we think we are not capable of it.

“We say we shouldn’t venture into that, let’s stay safe, let’s stay the course because we are Australian.

"Well I’m not going to buy into that, it’s not why I took this job, it’s not why I decided to go down this course.

“I want to challenge people. I want to test us and test our players and if they are not playing in the highest leagues maybe I can prompt something in them by challenging them in their environment by them saying, 'I can do this.”

Postecoglou shocked many observers when he implemented the 3-4-3 in the crucial qualifier against Iraq, but the Socceroos boss revealed it’s not the first time he tried a new formation in a vital match.

“Back in 2000 I was coaching South Melbourne and I went to the Club World Cup and we had to play Vasco De Gama,” he said.

‘l’ll never forget it, they had five World Cup winners in their starting line-up and we were literally a part time team and we played with three at the back and we’d never done that before.

“I felt that was the best system for us and we were 0-0 till about the 79th minute when they scored a couple of bombs at the end.

“I’ve always been flexible, part of it is just me trying challenge everyone. I just hate when we keep talking ourselves down.

“The wonderful thing about Australian players is that they are very coachable and they are not afraid they are very courageous.”

For most of Postecoglou’s tenure, Australia has played with a back four, but the Socceroos boss said he wasn’t married to that tactic.

“I’m not in love with the 4-3-3, I love my wife but the 4-3-3 I kind of like but I’m not as attached to it to be fair,” he said.

“I love my football teams to play a certain way, which is an attacking, possession based aggressive type of football and the system with which we play is just a factor of that. It’s not the core of it so we can play a multitude of ways.

“You look at Luongo, Mooy, Rogic, Troisi, Jackson Irvine, Jedinak, Milligan. You’ve got some really good strong players. Mustafa Amini as well is an upcoming talent.

“My thing is why not play a system that suits us and be tactically flexible and not be afraid that just because we are shifting in a certain thing that our players can’t cope.”