The Sky Blues, who drew at home with Suwon in their opening group game, face home clashes with Shanghai Shenhua and Kashima Antlers in the next fortnight.

Bridge told The Sunday Telegraph that victory in those matches would surely see them into the knockout stages of the tournament.

"I honestly think that if we win both our next two home games we'll get past the group stage. We all know how difficult it is to get results over there," Bridge said.

"It may seem a big call, but the boys are now playing with so much more confidence.

"I think we learnt a great deal from that game against Suwon Bluewings, when we had to play 60 minutes with 10 men. The boys did ever so well to survive.

"Probably more than anything else, we learnt that we have to be smarter with our challenges and not dive in.

"The Asian teams are very quick. That's probably the big difference, whereas I feel the Aussie teams are physically tougher."