The 29-year-old, whose future at Liverpool remains the subject of much speculation, has described it as a 'great honour' to skipper his country in their final warm-up before next week's crunch World Cup qualifier in China.

"It always is (an honour) to lead your country out. I'm going to take it from there and see what happens," said Kewell in the pre-match press conference on Friday.

"Obviously I'm going through a difficult time at the moment and to play this game is very important for me and I'm really looking forward to it."

Kewell's future at the Anfield club remains uncertain after his decision to travel to Asia rather than remain in England for this weekend's clash against Manchester United.

However, he does not feel that he has anything more to prove to his club and manager Rafael Benitez.

"Not really," responded Kewell. "They know what I'm capable of doing. I just need to play matches and so I'm out here to play."

The match at the National Stadium against Singapore comes just four days before the encounter against the Chinese.

However, Verbeek said that he is not too concerned about the team's ability to adjust to the differences in climate and altitude between the tropical island city state and the temperate high-altitude venue in Kunming where the World Cup qualifier takes place.

"We don't spend energy on what we cannot change," the Dutchman said.

"To be fair, I'm focussing more on the game tomorrow against Singapore because that is the first step, and then we travel on Sunday to China and try to win the game there.

"That's our job, so we'll try to look for the best team and the best tactics for the game tomorrow and for the game on Wednesday.

"It's a waste of time and energy to think about altitude or heat or humidity because that's the reality."