“You can’t imagine what it’s like,” a tired Duut told au.fourfourtwo.com after the Socceroos landed at Sydney airport.

“You have to be there to see how it is to play in the heat and flying in to a six-hour time difference."

Duut, Pim Verbeek's assistant alongside Graham Arnold, declared himself satisfied that the Australians had qualified with one game left in round three of AFC World Cup qualification.

“So I think we did a good job to go to the Emirates two weeks ago already and we arrived there just before playing our first game," he said.

“We are very happy to go to the next round.”

The 44-year-old former Feyenoord player and coach added that he’d been keeping an eye on his home nation Holland at Euro 2008 during his time away.

Quizzed on whether the Netherlands could actually win a major trophy he said: “We hope so. If they play like they did in the last two games.

"We don’t know what the change is but suddenly the football happens. And it looks like now it happens.”