The last time the Young Matildas (U20's) qualified for a World Cup was in 2006, while the Junior Matildas (U17's) have never qualified since FIFA started playing the tournament in 2008.

Juric, 43 is a former head coach of the Young Matildas and Junior Matildas, and is the current Sydney FC W-League coach.

The former Socceroo also had a stint serving as Matildas assistant coach in 2013/14 and he believes Australia needs to be developing a greater number of elite players at youth level.

“My theory is we need a bigger pool of players,” Juric said speaking exclusively to FourFourTwo.

“If you get a bigger pool our youngsters will be better, and we’ll have seven or eight good youngsters coming through from the junior team and then we've got a chance to qualify.

“The players are getting better, but there is still a lot to improve upon for boys and girls; I put them in the same boat.

“They’ve got more opportunities now as they start younger, so they are getting better that way. Our young girls are getting better but in saying that we need to improve certain things.

“When I was Nation Youth team Women's Coach we struggled against China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea and that still happens, so we are missing something.”

While Australia’s junior teams are struggling, it’s a different story for the senior Matildas.  

Victories against USA, Brazil, Japan and China has produced a record breaking seven-game winning streak that will put the Australians into the top five of the FIFA rankings at their next edition.

Juric feels that the results at youth level will only be a concern if players from the Young Matildas and Junior Matildas do not progress to the Matildas.

“We’ve got no issue with our senior nation team, it’s the junior’s that is the problem,” he said.

“Especially if you want to win something, that is why we need develop more players if we are to be better.

“The U17's and U19's have not qualified for a Youth World Cup in around 10 years but we shouldn’t be concerned just like the boys.

“It’s nice to get there, we should be aiming for that, but as long as some of those best youngsters are going to the Matildas we are doing okay.

“Putting that into context, when Japan’s 20 players go to these tournaments they are exceptional players but we’ll only have seven or eight, so that is what you are up against.

“That is why we don’t win or qualify but those seven or eight that go into the national team are excellent because they are good players and strengthen our national team.”

Sydney FC defender Angelique Hristodoulou was captain of the Junior Matildas team that lost 5-0 to Japan and 7-0 to DPR Korea in September’s World Cup qualifiers.

She told FourFourTwo that Australia struggle against the Asian countries because their players are much more highly developed.

“The quality overseas was a lot higher,” she said. “The tempo of the game was a lot quicker. They move the ball quicker. They think quicker. Everything was just quicker which we were not used to in Australia, so we found it very difficult.

“They were also better technically than us – we struggled there. Physically, to be honest, we just couldn’t match it with them.

“Specifically Japan and North Korea, because they’re the two we played. But Japan more so. North Korea were very direct whereas Japan were more technical, they like to play short, sharp, with a lot of movement on and off the ball.

“In all aspects we are quite far behind in comparison to Asian teams.”