Arnold was full of confidence before the match and expected victory in his side's Asian Cup opener, but Australia went down 1-0 to Jordan.

"It's very, very dangerous to talk like this," Borkelmans told reporters after the game. "I said many times to my players, guys, nobody knows.

"You saw it at the World Cup, big teams lost to small countries. It changed everything.

"When you put this (thought) in your players, they get so mentally strong that the performance is going up every minute in the game."

Borkelmans hailed his players and said they did everything he asked of them in terms of containing the Socceroos' key performers.

"It was the No.5 (Mark Milligan) and No.8 (Massimo Luongo) and also when No.22 (Jackson Irvine) come inside and No.17 (Mustafa Amini) - they make always the same movements," he said.

"I say to my players when these guys have the ball, make pressure on these guys. When they're coming inside, we have a lot of space behind the back. All my team made a big, big, big tactical performance."

Asked about his pre-match comments, Arnold denied he was being arrogant.

"That’s a translation difference. It’s not arrogance, it’s belief," the Socceroos boss said.

“It’s not arrogance at all. Those words are used a lot in Australia and in Australia it’s not considered arrogant."