Socceroos stalwart calls for patience Brett Emerton has called for patience from Australian football fans but admits it's high time the Socceroos start winning as they languish at their lowest-ever world ranking. After peaking at 14th in the rankings in 2009, the Socceroos were the world No.94 rated national team entering Tuesday night's friendly against Japan in Osaka. At odds somewhat with coach Ange Postecoglou's approach, Emerton said anything less than a decent showing - if not an outright win - against the Samurai Blue would be another psychological blow for the Socceroos ahead of the Asian Cup. The clash with Japan is the Socceroos' last before Australia hosts the Asian Cup in January and first since slumping to a 1-0 loss to Qatar in September, with Postecoglou having plotted just two wins from his 11 games in charge. "It's our lowest world ranking for quite some time and I can understand what Ange is saying about experimenting with the team and he won't have another opportunity like this to do so, but in sport confidence is everything," Emerton said on Tuesday. So it is really important that the boys do get a decent result. If they don't win or draw, they need to be competitive and put in a good performance so they can go into the Asian Cup with a realistic chance in their minds that they can win it. The Socceroos were unable to win a match at this year's World Cup and were held to a scoreless draw by the United Arab Emirates before also failing to find the net against Qatar. Emerton says it's imperative Postecoglou's side quickly restores the faith among disillusioned fans. "Australians are born winners - we love to be at the top - so it's important that we start to improve on recent results and get all the Australian public behind us again because it's important come Asian Cup time," said the retired Socceroos stalwart. When the national team plays, it's important that the stadiums are full. Despite their current dire standing amid a clear changing of the guard following the retirements of Harry Kewell, Mark Schwarzer, Emerton and others, Emerton sees light at the end of the tunnel. "We need to be a little bit patient," he said. The so-called golden generation is long gone now. There's a couple remaining (Tim Cahill and Mark Bresciano) but not enough to fill a team and so it's going to take some time to rebuild. It's not going to happen overnight. It's a work in progress, but I still think the Asian Cup for us as a national team is very important. We need to go there and do well and get that belief again that we can compete with the better nations in the world. Nominating attacking aces Matthew Leckie and Robbie Kruse as the new-age stars to carry the torch, Emerton said the Socceroos "should be looking to qualify for every World Cup from here on." "We're good enough to do that and we should achieve that," he said. But the next step is making sure we're competitive come World Cup time like we were in 2006 and 2010.