A rare display of collective defensive frailty saw the Lions ship seven goals against their Asian Zone Group Four adversaries, despite scoring three goals of their own in front of a 28,750-strong crowd at Kallang.

Close-range rebound shots by Aleksandar Duric and John Wilkinson, coming either side of a Fahrudin Mustafic penalty, meant that the central Asian side failed to register a competitive clean sheet for only the first time in their quest for the finals in South Africa.

And the manner in which Singapore had achieved their remarkable feat in the attacking third left Avramovic pleasantly surprised, although he did not hide his disappointment at the fact that the players could not convert those goals into points.

"If anyone had told me before the match that we would score three goals, I would have been very happy," he said as he opened his review in the post-match press conference.

"Scoring three against this team, I think, is something not many teams will do. They beat Lebanon without letting in a goal, and when they beat Saudi Arabia 3-0, the Saudis didn’t score a goal.

"Most probably, in any other game, if you score three goals it’s enough for you to win. But it was simply our bad luck that our opponent was just too good."

While the Lions’ success in their search for goals brought a carefully-hidden smile on their coach’s face, the ever-demanding man took little time to note that there had been misses which, had they been converted, could have reaped the team bigger rewards.

He singled out an eighth-minute chance Duric had spurned and a failed cross by John Wilkinson as examples, underlining his oft-repeated theme of the line that differentiated teams in international games.

"When it was 0-0 and Duric had an opportunity in a one-on-one, he was forced wide," the Serb pointed out.

"In the same situation, Maksim Shatskikh was able to score for his team’s seventh goal. And that’s the difference.

"The same thing happened with the first goal for Uzbekistan; when they came in from the left and played a low ball across, they got a goal. When John Wilkinson played the same ball at the other end, the defence cleared it out.

"We had the same moves as them, but they scored the goals and we didn’t. That’s the difference at this level."

Of more interest to most observers was the uncharacteristically porous showing by the Singapore defence, as Lionel Lewis, Daniel Bennett et al struggled to contain a rampant Uzbekistan midfield inspired by Vitaliy Denisov, Timur Kapadze and Server Djeparov.

Avramovic acknowledged that the backline had a torrid time on the evening, going so far as to say that, at times, it had appeared that the defence "did not exist".

But while he readily conceded that the team’s reputation for having a rock-steady rearguard was hardly justified by their performance against Uzbekistan, he defended his decision to play an attack-oriented five-man midfield rather than go for a negative lineup.

He also paid tribute to the outstanding attacking talent showcased by opposite number Rauf Inileev, noting that he had in fact anticipated the way Uzbekistan would play, but was nonetheless helpless as his defence was left floundering.

"We knew that most of Uzbekistan’s attacks come from their midfield going forward," he revealed.

"But our midfield could not cope. We had been preparing for all their late runs from deep, but we could not cope with them in the actual game.

"We played five midfielders, including three in attacking positions, hoping to use them to counter the Uzbek midfield. This worked generally, but I didn’t expect our defence to concede so many goals like they did today after the preparations we had.

"It is very easy to blame this player or that player, but the reality is that the Uzbeks are a very good team with very special midfield players. We didn’t have the compactness in defence, but anyone placed in our players’ shoes would have found it very difficult."

The comprehensive nature of the defeat – the first at home in a competitive match for nearly four years – also prompted Avramovic to make a frank and in-depth assessment of Singapore’s general performance in that period.

Back-to-back titles as kings of Southeast Asia, plus impressive displays at Kallang against the likes of China and Iraq, had prompted an unprecedented wave of optimism that the island nation was heading towards becoming a big-league team on the continent.

But Avramovic, whose role in transforming Singapore football’s fortunes landed him the Coach of the Year title in the Singapore Sports Awards announced last month, stressed that the loss was an opportunity for the team to put their achievements in perspective.

While the Lions’ hopes of reaching the next qualifying round remained alive, the former goalkeeper did not deny the enormity of the challenge for a squad which, as he candidly remarked, might still not have what it takes to progress as yet.

Urging his players to learn to have the consistency required of them at the highest level, Avramovic reiterated his belief that the squad he had chosen must be allowed the continual stream of chances to benchmark themselves against top-quality opponents.

"To finish a game like how we did now, I think, is a moment for us to sit down and think, to see where we go from here," said the 58-year-old.

"When you have had results going your way for some time, (people think that) everyone is okay and everything is fine. But it is not just one or two players’ fault when we lose and we lose like this; for me, the fault is with all of us.

"Not everything was bad with what we did today. But if we want to go closer to the top teams in Asia, we must improve many parts of our team.

"We have something in this team, but at the moment it is not enough, and we must keep looking to see what solutions we can find," he admitted in conclusion.

"But at the moment, I cannot see us having anything better. We have players who in some games can be really good, but more often, the same players are not able to perform to what is needed at international level.

"We cannot be looking at players who give you one brilliant game and five disasters, but that is what we have in some cases. We have to look at how to stabilize this team for the international level, because at this level, it’s a different set of rules and standards.

"We cannot rely on what we are used to doing here, like what we have now in the S.League. We must look for more opponents to play international-standard games with, because that is the only way we can see what we don’t already know.

"Today’s game showed us a lot of things we did not know before, and we must recover from this game in the little time we have and play on for the rest of the games we have."