“It's probably a little easier to go the other way; that is, from hot to cold rather than cold to hot. So Arnie's done the right thing by getting them over there as early as possible for them to adapt,” says Van Egmond.

“In saying that, you've got some very, very good players. You can talk about their technical ability with their excellent passing range and they're technically aware but they are immensely good athletes as well. I think recently Brett Emerton was voted the best athlete out of all the codes. So it's good that they've gone there to acclimatise.

“We have some extremely good athletes within the squad and you'll see that when the Cup kicks off.”

In terms of the conditions having an influence on Socceroo coach Arnold’s game plan, Van Egmond feels the bench will be more important than usual throughout the Asian Cup. “Obviously you've got to look at the opposition and see where their weaknesses are and try to exploit that.

“Having said that, there are players in your squad who you expect to do a certain role without the ball so perhaps you'd be looking to the bench a little more in the last 30 minutes than you would normally in other weather conditions.”

The Soccceroos will head to Bangkok later this week to prepare for their opening game in the Asian Cup against Oman. If they make the semi finals, they’ll play in Malaysia with the final slated for Jakarta on July 29.

"It was great to get the cobwebs out and players are starting to get acclimatised to the climate," Arnold told local reporters after the Singapore match.
"They were saying after the game that they felt a lot better in the second half then they did in the first, which is a great sign.

"We've worked very hard to get our fitness levels up and it was a great match to play against Singapore who really tested us and were very unlucky because they could easily have led 2-0 in the first half.”