Australian great Harry Kewell says today's Socceroos are copping unfair criticism and have raised the bar above the so-called 'golden generation' of players, who never won an international trophy.
"We did play in some better teams than some of the players are playing in now but then don't forget, what did we win? We won nothing," Kewell said on Friday.
"Let's give credit to this Australian team where they've actually won something," he said of the 2015 Asian Cup-winning squad.
The former international star is in Sydney with Brazilian World Cup winner Gilberto Silva on a promotional tour with the Confederations Cup trophy.
The Socceroos 'golden generation' of the mid-90s to the mid-00s that included Kewell, Tim Cahill, Mark Viduka and Mark Schwarzer is widely regarded as the best ever produced by Australia.
They won three Oceania Football Confederation Cups in 1996, 2000 and 2004 before a shift to Asia pitted them against tougher competition, and returned to the World Cup in 2006 after a 32-year hiatus.
At this year's Confederations Cup tournament in Russia the Socceroos will face reigning World Cup champions Germany in their tournament opener on June 19.
"This is where the pressure kicks in. You raise that bar up and as soon as you drop it questions are going to be firing at them," Kewell said.
"The only way to answer those questions is to go out there in the Confederations Cup and prove to everyone that they can stand up, they can handle the pressure and they want to qualify for the World Cup."
Kewell said the Socceroos will get an insight into what it will be like to play the World Cup in Russia next year should they qualify.
"They should just go there with no fear," he said.
"It's a tournament that you want to do well in but it's also a tournament that you can kind of experiment a little bit in because... there's still a bigger one around the corner."
Kewell reflected on the 1997 Confederations Cup where the Socceroos advanced all the way to the final before being hammered 6-0 by Brazil.
"We kind of looked at them as the Harlem Globetrotters of football at that time because everywhere you looked any person in that team could have damaged you," he said.
"Carlos was taking free kicks from 45 yards out, you had Ronaldo's blistering pace, you had Romario who was one of the smartest footballers in the world, you had Dunga who was just holding it all together."
