Australia coach Pim Verbeek has defended himself over the choice not to bring on Harry Kewell in Monday morning's loss to Germany.

Following the dismissal of Tim Cahill because of a suspect red card, the Australians were without their number one goalscorer for more than half an hour but Verbeek did not enter Kewell into the fray as he believed the timing and nature of the contest did not warrant it.

"The moment we start to play with 10 players, you need different players on the field from Harry Kewell," Verbeek said.

"That was the only reason I didn't bring him in. Against 10 men with a team that was already better than us, you have to make different decisions."

"If you lose 4-0 you can always say it didn't help, but nobody can prove we would have won if we had those players on the field," he added.

"They (Kennedy and Bresciano) didn't do well in the last two games, they didn't do well in training - not well enough.

"The players who were on the field were the better players - that's the reality."