The coach is catching up with a variety of players and managers on his current European trip. He has already met Mark Viduka while a trip to Goodison Park enabled him to catch up with Cahill and explain how well his top performers are looked after to and from lengthy international assignments.

Cahill’s broken foot will almost certainly keep him out of June’s packed program of matches and Verbeek is gutted that such a key player will not be available.

He told Evertontv: “Tim is always a starting member in the team. We know how good he is and important he is.

"He’s a fantastic guy off the pitch also and we missed him a lot for the China game. It looks like we will miss him in June now as well so we are not happy.”

With Cahill often having to travel half way around the world when the national side requests his services, Dutchman Verbeek knows the importance of creating a strong relationship with the Premier League clubs.

Another reason for the trip to Everton was the chance to explain to another club boss just how carefully the Socceroo staff look after such valuable commodities in transit.

Premier League managers are not always terribly understanding about their players being taken away from them and hauled across to the other side of the world – World Cup qualifier or not.

Verbeek said: “The biggest problem is travelling, and we try to be very careful with the boys because we know how important it is for them to be playing in their own leagues, but on the other hand I have 20 million people on my back wanting Australia to qualify for the next World Cup.

“We always send a doctor and a physio to Europe to pick up the boys, they are supported in the airplane. Then after the game we bring the doctor and the physio back to Europe again.

“So we try to do everything for the players and the clubs that they are playing for and that is the most we can do.”