Roar had a disastrous 2018/2019 season and Fowler was appointed in April. The Englishman has embarked on a major overhaul of his squad, bringing in 13 new players and letting 18 depart.

Brisbane were unbeaten in pre-season and knocked off defending champions Sydney FC in the FFA Cup.

But Fowler maintains his side is still flying under the radar.

"If you look at all the pundits and everyone’s maybe – not writing us off, but no one’s really giving us that much hope," he admitted.

"We’re more than happy about that. We can go along quietly and do our business. We could have 10 players having their debut [on Sunday]… it’s interesting. We’ve sort of gone under the radar a little bit but we’re happy about that, we’ll take that.

"We know internally what we can and can’t do. Flying under the radar is perfect for us.
I don’t think teams will underestimate us. Not a chance. I’ll be amazed if teams don’t know about us.

"That’s the way football is."

Fowler is confident his new-look team can surprise some people this season.

"We want to be competitive, we want to make teams have difficult games," he said.

"We’ll do that. At the same time we know how difficult it’s going to be. As long as we put a shift in and work hard and we do everything we can in terms of helping each other as a team, we can get results."

Roar open their season away at Perth Glory today.

Fowler believes Brisbane will be "massive underdogs" against Perth, but feels the result in round one won't define his club's campaign.

"It’s showing our lads what we’ve got, what we can do," the 44-year-old said.

"We go to Perth as massive underdogs. We’re playing against a great team, with a great manager and great players. We’re looking forward to see where we’re at. We want to go there, get the right result and play well.

"But if we win or if we lose, it doesn’t mean we’re out of the league."