Ryan looks ahead having completed 'first piece' of the Asian Cup puzzle

Ben Carey \\ Photo Credit: Aleksandar Jason/Socceroos 1706066153,1706068217

Subway Socceroos Captain Mat Ryan's reaction following a 1-1 draw against Uzbekistan to finish top of Group B in the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023™.

Martin Boyle converted a penalty just before half time to put the Socceroos in front, however Uzbekistan equalised, scoring from a header just before the 80th minute.

Ryan was disappointed not to keep a clean sheet, especially after the team surpassed 609 minutes of football without conceding a goal, a national team record, but maintained winning the tournament was still the bigger picture.

“The first piece of the puzzle, finishing top of the group, was the most important at this stage of the competition. We can be proud of that.” Ryan said.

“I feel like we’re building into the tournament nicely. And we’ll go and analyse this and recover from tonight’s match and look forward to the next one.”

While disappointed with the result, the captain recognised the valuable lesson, the result and tournament has been thus far, for the younger players in the squad.

“When you face some adversity, and some challenges, and you don’t get the result that you want… you have to take it in your stride.

“It’s important to learn from the lessons that we got tonight, and the better that we can do, the stronger we’ll be moving forward."

“That's going to be the messages that are going to be driven now moving forward is to learn from each experience, and in each game in the moments within that to make yourself stronger, and we’ll come out hungry for the next one.”

The Subway Socceroos have faced India, Syria, and Uzbekistan through the group stage amassing seven points in the process.

Tweet: https://twitter.com/Socceroos/status/1749789662808519104

With passage to the Round of 16 secured, the team will be made to wait to find out their opponent from one of three third placed sides in Groups A, C or D. That match will take place on Sunday, 28 January at 2:30pm local (10:30pm AEDT).

“There’s no easy games and that’s exactly how it’s been up until now.

“It’s just part of the mentality that we want within the group is that we respect every opponent that we come up against.

“We’ve done a good job of that until now.”