Nestory Irankunda will head back to Bayern Munich determined to quickly improve so he can “dominate” World Cup qualifying and salvage the Socceroos’ flagging campaign.

The teen sensation was a clear shining light in his second start, and fourth cap overall, as Australia slumped to a frustrating 0-0 draw with Indonesia in Jakarta on Tuesday night.

Irankunda, 18, will now return to the Bundesliga powerhouse, where he has impressed since signing earlier this year, ahead of October’s matches against China and Japan.

“I felt like a better player compared to my first start,” Irankunda said.

“Obviously I had my chances, created chances as well, was unlucky to get subbed off a bit early but that’s just how football is and I’m pretty happy with my performance, honestly.

“Hopefully I can go back over to Germany, work on my craft and try some new things, try and improve and come back and start dominating this group stage.”

Irankunda’s performance, as a second striker alongside Mitch Duke, included a scintillating first-half strike that just clipped the post then deflected off Indonesia’s goalkeeper to safety.

“It was just a bit unlucky,” he said.

“I hit it perfectly, just one centimetre away and obviously that happens in football but we go again in the next round.”

Irankunda’s chance was one of 19 Socceroos shots in a frustrating night.

“It was our game all along. We should have won it,” Irankunda added.

“We had our chances in the first half and second half but we should have put them away in the first half. We just got unlucky.

“But we still had the fight and we tried our best to try and win the game still.

“We were dominating the whole game.”

The draw compounds Australia’s horror first-up loss to Bahrain, with hopes of a top-two finish in group C and a direct qualification spot fading.

The Socceroos currently sit fifth in the group of six.

But Irankunda played down any concerns.

“No, we’re not panicking at all. We’re not panicking. No need to panic,” he said.

“It’s great to have such a huge crowd. They did give us some trouble but we kept our heads and we still have the fight.

“One point is OK but we would have liked to have three.”

Arnold ‘disappointed’ after two games the Socceroos should have won

Already under pressure, Graham Arnold concedes he’ll have some thinking to do to turn the Socceroos’s fortunes around.

But the Socceroos boss remains adamant direct qualification to football’s showpiece tournament isn’t yet out of reach.

In stark contrast to qualifying for Qatar 2022, which started brightly then dramatically fell away — forcing Australia to take the play-off route — this time around, the Socceroos have started on the back foot.

As the Socceroos fumbled against Indonesia, piling pressure on Arnold, Saudi Arabia came from a goal down, with 10 men, to beat China 2-1 then Japan thrashed Bahrain 5-0 .

They top the group with two wins with Saudi Arabia in second on four points.

“We should have won and won comfortably. We had the chances, we missed chances — again,” Arnold told reporters.

“Look, I can only do so much, I can’t play the game for them.

“And at the end of the day, we should have beaten Bahrain — we missed chances — and today we should have won comfortably and we missed chances.

“So I’m as disappointed probably as every other Australian is.

“But there’s another eight games to go and the goal is always to qualify direct but you have those extra play-off spots.

“For me at this moment, I’m just frustrated and I just need to go home to Australia and have a really good think about things.”

There is plenty to think about ahead of hosting China in a must-win clash in Adelaide on October 10, then playing Japan away five days later.

Chief among those will clearly be finding a way to score after the Socceroos once again failed to bury clear-cut chances despite clear improvement on the Bahrain performance.

That included a period of dominance at the back end of the first half.

“I saw the boys put in a lot of effort and they worked extremely hard,” Arnold said.

“Again, we created five or six chances and It’s no surprise that the man of the match was the goalkeeper for Indonesia because he made a lot of good saves

“But for us, it’s hurtful because obviously again, not putting the ball in the back of the net, it’s something that’s been going on for a year where we should have won games, even against the biggest teams in the world.

“But not putting the ball in the back of the net, obviously it hurts and we don’t get the points.”

AAP