“We’ve got a 50-50 chance of getting a win against Urawa now,” said manager Branko Culina. “They are there for the taking. They conceded three against Persik so something’s not right with them.

“Our future is in our own hands and if anyone had offered us that at the start of the tournament, we would have been delighted. They have to lose some time – and hopefully it will be against us.”

Last night’s line-up turned up in force for the morning training session with no new reported injuries after the match, but foul weather cut short the beach workout.

Culina is confident a full-strength Sydney can pull off a shock win against Urawa in two weeks’ time, even though the J-League champs are so far unbeaten in the competition.

But he admitted the Sydney attack is missing the killer instinct in front of goal to convert their scoring chances into goals.

“We know we’re good enough,” he said. “We just have to deal with a hostile 60,000 crowd.

“Last night though our finishing was just not good enough. We need to be better. We need to turn those chances into goals, irrespective of the opposition or how they play.

“Last night we weren’t good enough to deal with the challenge. Hopefully in two weeks’ time, we will be.

“I think very few people realise what it would mean for us to reach the quarter finals. It would be a huge recognition of the game in this country.”

Culina didn't want to discuss Shanghai’s theatrical injuries, but admitted: “I’ve been preaching to the players that that’s exactly why we need to be that little bit extra better prepared so we can overcome that sort of thing.

“I expected them to sit back and try to counter. I was a little bit disappointed by some of the antics and maybe if the ref in the first half had pulled out a yellow card it might have changed things, but he didn’t. It’s just another thing we have to be able to overcome.

“We changed our tactics during the game. We originally set out to dominate the midfield using the diamond shape but that didn't seem to be working out for us as well as we would have liked.

“At half-time we changed to a more 4-3-3 to give us more width and it seemed to work in that we created chances, but you can only be judged by the goals you score.

“We are working on the finishing in training. It’s a challenge for the players to have a look at getting more killer instinct to their finishing.

“They can’t just hope for the best. We want them to do it in training so that when they go out there they know they can do it instead of hoping for the best.”

Match hero Dave Carney saw action at both ends of the park, clearing a certain Shenhua goal off the line but was denied a goal of his own by a wonder save from Shanghai keeper, Zhang Chen.

“The keeper went the other way and the ball was swerving so I don't know how he got to it. He pulled off a few other good saves as well. He was the man of the match for me,” said Carney.

“I didn't know much about my clearance. It was pure instinct really. We had someone on the back post for just that sort of thing so it was good to get a clearance.”

And he insisted there were many positives that came out of the match.

“I think our possession was definitely a positive – we played them off the park. We still created a lot of chances but it was just a day when they just didn't go in,” he said.

“We kept the ball very well and played good football. If we can take that in to Urawa Reds and keep the ball like that then I think we should win.

“It was definitely frustrating but we found out after the match that Urawa Reds had drawn 3-3 so we’re still in the hunt. Our destiny is in our own hands to go there and win.

“It’s going to be a very hostile crowd over there but the boys are pumped up and will be working hard over the next two weeks and I’m sure we’ll go over there and give it a good crack.

“We deserved to win the first match when we were 2-0 up, but they will know now that we are a quality side and they will be fully prepared as well.

“In front of 60,000 fans, it will be like playing at Old Trafford. These are the kind of games you want to be playing in.”