Kewell is currently without a club and has struggled for fitness for most of the year to date. Verbeek admitted he had his doubts about the former Liverpool and Leeds star's ability to get back to his best during the recent match against Singapore ahead of March's qualifier against China.

But the Dutchman is a believer again after the determined Kewell produced a brilliant standard of training in camp over the past fortnight and Verbeek says the skipper could be the card which trumps the Iraqis on Sunday.

"Harry's a fantastic player. The Harry Kewell I've seen in these two weeks is 100 percent better than the one in Singapore. At that time, he was struggling a little bit both mentally and physically. He's fit and ready, he's very good in the group. He's trained every training session from the first to the last minute. He wants to show what he can do," he said.

Verbeek said Kewell had demonstrated during his career that he has an ability to transform a game and do thing which other players couldn't. He was confident that Kewell's physical and mental state was such that he was ready to produce another special game in the Socceroos top.

"He's as important as all the other players, but he has special qualities. He has to use his special qualities and the rest of the team has to make sure he can use his special qualities. If they have everything, they will all play to the best of their ability," he said.

"Harry has special qualities and my job is to create a team where we all can use our special qualities and hide our weaknesses."

Verbeek said Kewell had responded well to being given the Socceroos captaincy in last week's friendly against Ghana, and deserved to lead the side out on Sunday.

"It's a big responsibility. I'm a lucky man, I have a lot of experienced players available to lead this team, Vince Grella, Brett Emerton, Mark Schwarzer. Harry is doing very well. And I'm not the sort of person to change things around, Harry's the captain tomorrow."

Verbeek has already chosen his starting XI for the match, but admits he is yet to finalise who will be his substitutes. He has whittled his squad down to 24 players with Joel Griffiths the notable absentee, while Adam Griffiths and Adam Federici are both injured.

In a minor surprise, Archie Thompson made an appearance at Socceroos training yesterday in a sign that the Melbourne Victory striker is still a chance to play a part over the next month. Thompson has yet to play a full game since injuring his knee during his club's Asian Champions League campaign and took no serious part in the session.