Socceroos coach Tony Popovic doesn't regret experimenting with young and inexperienced players less than seven months out from the World Cup.
But he's conceded Australia will need to lift several gears if they are to claim just their 10th win in 50 games against world No.13 Colombia at New York's Citi Field on Wednesday.
An experimental line-up suffered a deflating 1-0 loss to Venezuela on Saturday, with Popovic debuting four players, including three starters.
He conceded the performance was "disjointed" and for the middle hour "there wasn't much good from us with and without the ball".
"But look, I know that is partly due to a lot of the youngsters playing at the same time, but that was my choice to expose them," he said.
"I don't regret doing that. I'm happy we did that."
Popovic praised debutants Patrick Beach, Paul Okon-Engstler, Kai Trewin and Al Hassan Toure and expected Mohamed Toure and Nestory Irankunda to learn from a "difficult" game.
He compared the situation to Australia's usual task of battling through qualifiers until the latest possible moment.
"We've had the luxury of qualifying automatically, which gives you a chance to stick to the same players and say, 'this is my group', or open the door to possibilities of someone coming in that could potentially make the team stronger, the squad stronger. That's the approach we've taken," he said.
"When I look at Paul Izzo getting a chance, he's proven he can do it. Patrick Beach, there's a list of players. Jacob Italiano coming in and showing that now he's a chance for the World Cup.
"That's come by giving players an opportunity. We may lose a little bit of balance or maybe relationships on the park, I agree with that. But we haven't had a lot of players for long periods, senior players.
"So it's been hard to juggle, but I'm happy with the players that have come in and given us more options for the World Cup selection.'"
Popovic will turn to more experience against Colombia, one of Australia's toughest challenges to date, and likely test a different midfield pairing.
The Socceroos have never beaten Colombia, who are headlined by Bayern Munich star Luis Diaz and qualified via the brutally competitive CONMEBOL confederation headlined by Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
"We wanted these matches for this reason," Popovic said.
"When you're exposed to that, you're ahead of the game, and we're not exposed to that.
"We have a very small group of players that are maybe exposed to the highest level, so we have to expose them to these games, these difficult matches, and difficult moments in a game.
"... this is part of what we're doing as a national team to try and bridge that gap.
"Maybe it's on (Wednesday) that we can turn that tide and beat a South American opponent. But ideally if we get them in the World Cup, that's where I really want to change that."
