The Socceroos face four months of painful reflection before they'll get a chance to remedy their dismal World Cup qualifying performance against Thailand.
Tuesday night's lacklustre 2-2 draw with Group B stragglers Thailand has left both the Australian squad and their hopes of making the cut for a fourth consecutive World Cup hurting.
Having slipped out of the automatic qualifying spots into third place, the Socceroos' next fixtures in March, against Iraq in neutral territory and the United Arab Emirates in Sydney, take on a whole new level of importance.
While qualification is still in their hands, any room for error has now gone.
Ange Postecoglou's national team entered Bangkok as red-hot favourites and departed with a weak 2-2 stalemate that threw up more questions than it did answers.
Just as difficult as it was to miss the chance to top their group, left-back Brad Smith was dreading the long period of stewing over everything that should have gone differently.
"It's just disappointing that we've got to go into the four-month break now before the next game," Smith said.
"If you go into the break with a win it's a lot better, but now we've got to think about it for four months.
"Not one of us really performed that well, and it showed.
"Giving the ball away a lot, it affects the team. It's very disappointing from every single player."
Former Socceroos goalkeeper Mark Bosnich slammed Australia's display at Rajamangala National Stadium as "pathetic" and the worst he's seen in Postecoglou's three years at the helm.
Defender Trent Sainsbury said the team didn't deserve to take a point, which they only managed courtesy of captain Mile Jedinak's two penalties.
"You can look at a whole bunch of things, make a whole bunch of excuses, but at the end of the day the Thais put up a good fight and we let ourselves down," Sainsbury said.
