Sydney FC are on course to win successive A-League premierships, sitting nine points clear at the top of the table while Wellington Phoenix remained anchored to the bottom, having won only three games this season.

Theirs was one of three A-League games van Marwijk attended last weekend as he started his scouting of Australian players, but only one game impressed the new coach – Saturday afternoon's match between Newcastle Jets and Melbourne Victory.

"It was different, the level of the games, but I saw one good game. I was positively surprised at the level of that game," he said.

Van Marwijk will return to Europe early on Wednesday morning to begin scouring the continent for Australian players, starting with this weekend's games in Germany and Switzerland, where he'll take notes on Robbie Kruse playing for VFL Bochum and Tomi Juric at Luzern. While several other players are nearby, time constraints until the next squad selection in just over a month will see van Marwijk call upon his extensive scouting network.

"We are making plans already to see where we are going to scout, starting this weekend already. I want to see as many players as possible but that's difficult to see 30-40 players in seven weeks, it's not possible. So I also need other people who know something about football. They have to help me see all the players, and then I can say something. But it [the squad] will not change a lot because that's impossible," he said.