The Joeys failed to qualify for the Under-17 World Cup in India after they failed to win any of their three group games at last year’s AFC Under-16 Championship.

Tony Vidmar’s team finished the tournament with three defeats against Kyrgyzstan (1-0), Vietnam (3-2) and Japan (6-0).

While in the older age group, the Young Socceroos have failed to qualify for the previous two Under-20 World Cups.

Abrams began as technical director in September 2014 and no Australian under-age team (Under-17, Under-20 and Under-23) has qualified for a World Cup or Olympics since he commenced his tenure.

Despite these results Abrams told FourFourTwo that he doesn’t believe Australia is falling behind Asia.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “This is really an issue of talent identification. It happens in this age group. 

“If you limit your access to a small amount of players and at the same time we have a lot players who are already in an academy environment and they don’t come to your Centre of Excellence then we miss out on a lot of players.

“Secondly you can’t deny that some of the countries are developing and improving that is for sure but I think we must be open and honest.

“If we go to a qualifier group with Japan, Vietnam and Uzbekistan we expect to at least be the second group qualifier but that didn’t happen and that’s why this was disappointing.

“I saw the game against Japan and if you make a comparison, at the moment in this age group Japan are far ahead of us. They are far ahead.”

A few months before the Joeys competed at AFC Under-16 Championship, Vidmar’s side won the AFF Under-16 Tournament by beating Vietnam. However, that result was reversed when the teams met again at the Asian qualifiers in September.

Abrams said that outcome was no surprise and another reason why the Joeys struggled was because they were younger than their opponents.

“One of the problems is that we had a qualifier for a World Cup that was for the 2000s (age group) and we had a very small amount in that age bracket,” he said.

“There were a lot players in the 2001s (age group) competing in this competition. That is something to consider. How it came that we only had a small amount of 2000s?

“The second thing is, you can’t forget that we won the AFF against Vietnam but it was a 3-3 score and it was on penalties. I saw the game there and the semi-final against Thailand and we did not bad, not good.

“If you play a draw against Vietnam and you go to the qualifiers you can’t expect to go and smash them. So that is a little bit complex, we have to look at it.

“Did we have some good players there? Absolutely. We had some good players. Where we prepared to qualify for the World Cup? I don’t think so.

"I don’t think the quality was there and also because of the age group.”

Photo: FFA