Mitch Duke spoke to reporters at Mrs Macquarie's Chair with Australia's first of two matches against Ecuador fast approaching.
The striker, whose solitary goal at the FIFA World Cup secured a famous win over Tunisia, said it was a great feeling to be back on home soil.
Catch up on everything the 32-year-old had to say below.
Duke on the optimism surrounding the Subway Socceroos following an impressive FIFA World Cup...
I mean to be fair there's obviously been a huge shift, I think in the feeling of that. We felt the amazing support during the tournament, when I think we've probably made the naysayers kind of eat their own words. Alright, France was a big loss but I think we kind of showed a bit there where we went 1-0 up in the first 30 minutes. And then after that, we obviously just thrived in the tournament. And I feel like we earned the respect that we deserve. We didn't really let the negativity build up before the World Cup get to us. And we use that as motivation and I felt like we've seen the shift now and the support, we saw the support, which is a big reason why we're back here playing in Sydney and Melbourne. Because we saw those scenes when we were scoring goals and winning those games, it was incredible.
Duke on preparations for the AFC Asian Cup begin now...
I think Arnie has mentioned that it's a clean sheet of paper for everyone to show themselves. So you know, we have maybe the upper hand to get that first camp in to show yourselves and put yourself on that clean sheet of paper and try and keep your spot. It's exciting to see the young talent that's coming through. There's some amazing young players that we're seeing and I'm watching a lot of them in the A-League as well and it's exciting for Australian football, and we can all be excited about what's to come for the future.
Duke on earning the respect from the footballing world...
I mean I think we can take huge pride out of that and that's like, best validation you can get from the current world champions, for their coach (Lionel Scaloni) to say that we were the hardest game to prepare for is like, huge credit to us. And I think we've earned the respect from the footballing community all around the world. And we can take huge pride in that.