Ange Postecoglou paid credit to his players after their awesome effort against Chile but remains disappointed with the Socceroos' elimination from the Confederations Cup.
Australia gave one of their best performances under Postecoglou after he took over the national team in 2013.
The match finished 1-1 against the Chileans in Moscow, but with the Socceroos needing a 2-0 victory they have now been knocked out of the tournament.
PIC SPECIAL: Australia v Chile
"We’re obviously very disappointed," he said.
"We wanted to continue in the tournament, we wanted to get out of this group. That’s what we came here for and we haven’t, so we’re just disappointed at the moment."
Postecoglou sprung a surprise with six changes from his XI that drew with Cameroon in St Petersburg. Tim Cahill, Jackson Irvine, James Troisi, Massimo Luongo, Aziz Behich and Ryan McGowan were all handed starting berths, while Tom Rogic and Aoory Mooy were overlooked.
It was a bold move that gave the green and gold increased energy and paid off.
"I think there was a change in intensity," he said.
"We knew it was going to be a tough group. Every game was going to take a lot of energy from us.
"This third game was always going to be a critical one. We had guys waiting who had not played a lot in the first two games, we knew they could bring energy to the group and maintain our style of football.
"We were going to need it today because Chile are a world-class team. They’re a fantastic team. They’ve played some of the best teams in the world off the park.
"That’s why I made changes, credit to the guys that came in. They certainly brought that and more.
"From that perspective it was a good performance."
Postecoglou believes his players will get "massive belief" out of the Confederations Cup and in particular their display against La Roja.
"In terms of our performances, we had a bit of slow start against Germany but we sort of rectified that in the second half and we hung in that game," he said.
"Against Cameroon I thought it was a fairly even game. We had a day’s less rest against a very physical side and that probably cost us a little bit of sharpness in the final third.
"But we’ve been in every game and today we were the better side and deserved to get something out of it.
"I don’t see it as progression, I see it as what we’re expecting at the moment. We want to measure ourselves against the very best and we have.
"But we’re not quite there yet so we’ll keep pushing forward and making sure we keep developing.
"The players will get massive belief out of that. [But] it’s definitely a missed opportunity.
"We wanted to come here and at least get out of the group and we haven’t. But that’s me setting the highest possible benchmarks and I think we have to if we’re ever going to consistently compete at this level.
"It was a game where we certainly had opportunities to win the game."
Postecoglou reiterated his desire to take risks and continue wih his bold vision for the Australian national team.
"At some point in time I’ll get replaced by 'John the pragmatist' and you can all be happy and revel in it," he said.
"I’ll stick true to what I’ve started to do in this job with the same intention. We’ll play a certain style of football, take it to opposition teams and see where it takes us.
"The most important thing for us was not let to Chile dominate the game, because when you allow Chile to dominate the game it’s almost impossible to beat them.
"It’s easy to say but we had to take some risks. We pushed on very high and pushed on into the back third.
"Sometimes that meant leaving Alexis Sanchez one vs one but we needed to be like that. We had to persist and play through the pressure.
"We needed to face up to them tonight and it's what we want to be as a team as well. Tonight that was the most important thing for us."
Related Articles
Champion A-League coach set to join Premier League giants
Under the gun: Spurs fans want Ange to be a loser in night of spite
