Acting Socceroos captain Lucas Neill has raised the bar for Australia's next World Cup campaign by claiming their historic run into the second round at Germany 2006 was only a "mini" success.

Neill made the extraordinary claim Australia "didn't actually achieve too much" at the World Cup after a week in which the Socceroos' last-16 success was wildly celebrated by tens of thousands of fans in Brisbane and Sydney.

"At the same time that it is humbling, I believe ticker tape parades and the hype and celebrations that everyone wants to give us ... is probably a bit too much reward for what we did," Neill said ahead of Wednesday night's Asian Cup qualifier against Bahrain at Aussie Stadium.

"I think it's the fact that we haven't been to the World Cup for 32 years that everyone was so delighted that we went and did well.

"But when you think about it, we've made the last 16.

"I don't think its embarrassing, I think it's great that we've been acknowledged like this, but imagine what it would have been like if we got through the Italy game.

"I know we would have beaten Ukraine (in the quarter-finals) in the next game, and then we would have been in the last four in the world, and that's something really, to be celebrating.

"I think as good as the celebrations back here have been, we can only call it a mini success because, let's be honest, we didn't actually achieve too much.

"We got to the second round of the World Cup, but we've not really come away with anything else."

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