Speaking in Perth at a lunch for the Parkerville Organisation, a charity that aids abused children, Verbeek compared Australia to his native Netherlands, saying a Dutch side that's full of champions has often struggled to be a champion team in the Australian mould.

"My players are the most professional players I've worked with," Verbeek said.

"Mark Schwarzer of course, Lucas Neill, Vince Grella, Timmy Cahill just to mention a few who just bring something extra into the team.

"You can see they don't allow any other person not to be professional.

"In my two-and-a-half years (with the Socceroos), I've never had one player come late to the bus, or too late for whatever it was.

"You can say that's normal. In the football world I promise you that's not normal."

Verbeek said the standards his senior players set ensured everyone worked for each other and stopped individual egos going over the top.

"That's the difficult part of your job to control your players and find out if there are any egos, how to handle them," Verbeek said.

"Some of them you have to tap on the shoulders, some of them you have to kick a little bit.

"That is why the Netherlands are always struggling in the World Cup.

"It's true they have probably the best selection, they always have fantastic football players but the Dutch mentality ... as long as you're on the team sheet, as long as you're in the picture, you're okay.

"The moment you're No.12, we don't like that, you start to be difficult," he added, in a veiled nod towards Ruud van Nistelrooy, whose selection tantrums at the 2006 World Cup in Germany appeared to undermine the Netherlands' effort, leading to an early exit during the second round.

"So far in the last two-and-a-half years, I haven't had to do so much because my players control the dressing room."

"They enjoy being together so the team spirit is fantastic.

"You always know that the big names, the so-called stars are mixing only with the stars. That happens a lot in football ... but not with my players.

"The first thing that I saw when we were in Melbourne, for the Qatar game was that when the players arrived they were so happy to see each other, they were immediately as a team," the coach said, when asked about his first match in charge of Australia during February 2008.

"You can't see if they play for Liverpool or Everton or in the big Italian leagues, they are just normal guys and they work very, very hard for each other.

"They can't do it all by themselves and that's what we have to do at the World Cup, we have to work as a team and if you don't do that, it's better to stay here.

"We have to be at our best and we have to do it all together."