Having already qualified for the next round of qualification thanks to last weekend's 3-1 win over Qatar, the clash with the out-of-contention China in Sydney was a dead rubber for the Australians.

But coach Pim Verbeek probably won't be pleased with the way a mostly Olyroos-based team was outplayed by the Chinese, who were statistically the worst team in the qualifying group.

However Schwarzer feels the coach will be happy with several aspects of the performance, especially after injuries and suspensions robbed him of many first-team players.

"It was disappointing to lose the game definitely," said Schwarzer, who was in Perth on Monday to launch his latest children's book.

"But, I think it was a great opportunity for a lot of the players that were, say fringe players to get an opportunity to play ... it gives them an opportunity to step up and try and stake their claim in the squad for the full national team.

"It was always going to be a difficult game when you're putting a team together with the little experience that they had."

Schwarzer also criticised the ANZ Stadium's pitch, saying the newly re-laid turf was not up to international standard and contributed to the performance.

"Other players, maybe things didn't run as well as they liked but the conditions had a lot to play in that as well, the pitch wasn't the best to play football on," said Schwarzer.

"The national team today plays proper football and if you can't get the ball on the ground and get the confidence that you need, get the right sort of ball from the pitch, then it makes things very difficult."

The goalkeeper, however, was grateful the game against China was part of a group qualification system for the 2010 World Cup, saying the players could now afford the odd poor performance, even when facing much tougher Asian opponents in the next round.

"It doesn't really matter who we get in our group, it's going to be tough," he said.

"But the beauty of having these group stages is that you play eight games and you know, if one game along the way doesn't go your way ... you've always got another handful of games to make amends."

"The game in Dubai proved, against Iraq, we were unfortunate to lose the game. Seven days later we had another game to make amends for it and put us on track, which we did," he said referring to Australia's win over Qatar.

Schwarzer, though, could not say whether he would be joining the Olyroos, Australia's under-23 side, for the upcoming Olympics in Beijing.

"I haven't even thought about it," he said. "It's one of those situations that it's obviously been spoken about in the media quite a bit, speculated who the over-age players are going to be (but) the manager, in Graham Arnold, needs to decide on who he'd like to bring in."

Having recently joined English Premiership club Fulham after 11 seasons at Middlesbrough, Schwarzer also said his training commitments to the new team may have to come before participating in Beijing.

"The Olympics is an unbelievable event to be part of and I've never been part of it before and it would be very difficult to say no," said the 35-year-old.

"[But Fulham's preseason is] obviously something that you've got to take into consideration, without a doubt, and it's not an ideal scenario.

"I'm not getting too carried away with it, but as it stands at the moment there's nothing being said and I just go about starting pre-season at Fulham on July 12."