Aloisi looks ahead to Asian Cup

Despite the Socceroos dramatic exit, Australian striker John Aloisi has said there is no time to dwell on what might have been at the World Cup and, instead, must to concentrate on Australia's next big competition - The Asian Cup.

Despite the Socceroos dramatic exit, Australian striker John Aloisi has said there is no time to dwell on what might have been at the World Cup and, instead, use the momentum to concentrate on Australia's next big competition - The Asian Cup.

Aloisi believes the Socceroos can harness the lessons learned in Germany 2006 when they compete for the first time in the 2007 Asian tournament in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

"The Asian Cup is going to help us, with that experience of competing at a tournament level," he said to sportal.com.au.

"The experience of playing at this level, playing at World Cups will help us. A lot of those Italians have been at a few World Cups and a few European championships."

"That's the way they got through, they got through because they had more experience, and were more street smart than we were."

Aloisi said it was important to focus on the positives of what was a remarkable campaign, and to look ahead and keep football growing in Australia.

"We've done ourselves proud and the whole of Australia proud," he said.

"The world's taken notice that we're no mugs that we can compete with anyone and let's hope that in the next World Cup we can do even better."

"I think we've earned a lot of respect. We've shown we can play good football, maybe better than Italy. We showed against Brazil that we're capable of competing with them. We got through a tough group, we've earned a lot of respect."