In stark contrast to Friday’s generally upbeat reaction, Wade preferred to take a far more cautious view after the Socceroos drew what is regarded as the easier route for the final stage of the Asian World Cup qualifiers starting in September.

With the top two teams after the home-and-away series automatically going through to the finals, Australia is widely expected to qualify for South Africa after being drawn alongside Japan, Uzbekistan, Qatar and Bahrain in group A.

The luck of the draw certainly fell the Socceroos’ way as they avoided group B which contains South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea and the UAE.

However, Wade, capped 115 times for the national team, said people should not be getting carried away.

"This is still a very dangerous draw," Wade said yesterday. "People just don’t understand that nothing is easy in international football any more.

"I had a young guy come up to me on Saturday and say how good it is for the Socceroos to qualify for South Africa and we still have eight games to play.

"Asia, in particular, is a very tough route.

"I remember when we were told a few years ago that we would be placed in Asia to qualify for future World Cups ... everyone was over the moon.

"It was as if we had a divine right to the World Cup finals because we are supposedly superior football wise to most of the Asian countries. Well, we have discovered how tough it really is, haven’t we?"

Wade pointed to Australia’s failed bid to win the Asian Cup last year, bombing out in the quarter-finals to Japan after getting through only after winning the last game of the group stage.

"We forget how we struggled against Oman and Iraq before lifting our game to get to the last eight," he said.

"Even the latest stage of the Asian World Cup qualifiers wasn’t a pushover.

"We struggled twice against Iraq and China and Qatar gave us a bit of a fight."

Not surprisingly, Wade nominated Japan as Australia’s biggest danger and also suggested Uzbekistan is a potential "banana skin" game.

"As far as the Uzbeks are concerned, it is the unknown factor with them," he added. "They have the Russian football factor. They’ll be well organised and clinical and will be extremely hard to beat on their territory.

"As for Japan, we know how good they are; we know they have quality players and we know they are very quick and technically very good."

Former Socceroo and now commentator Robbie Slater saw Uzbekistan at the Asian Cup finals and admitted he was "greatly impressed".

"I think of the four teams in Australia’s group, Uzbekistan is a cause of real concern," he said. "Our guys know nothing of them while the travelling is going to be a huge issue.

"It’s a 40-odd hour trip and that will knocking a bit of the stuffing out of anyone.

"The good thing is that the Socceroos play them away first up, so they will get that out of the way very early."