Blues midfielder Massimo Luongo says his recall to the Australia squad for their London-based friendlies against England and New Zealand is a reward for his hard work following a series of injuries during his spell with Sheffield Wednesday.
The Socceroos face the Three Lions at Wembley on Friday, then the All Whites at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium four days later.
Luongo has returned to the squad for the first time in four years, joining Town teammate Cameron Burgess, who made his full debut in last month’s 2-2 friendly draw with Mexico in the US.
"It's nice to see everyone, players have changed, it's just nice to be back,” Luongo told Socceroos.com.au.
"I haven't met a lot of players but you know when Aussies meet it feels like you've known each other for a while so it's just a nice environment to come back into.
"I think eventually the more you play on the pitch you get to know people but looking at the squad to be fair I didn't know many.
”I [know] Jacko [Jackson Irvine], Aziz [Behich]. Obviously I know Burge [Burgess], Maty Ryan obviously and it's just like catching up again.”
Regarding his lengthy international hiatus, the 31-year-old added: "To be fair I had a pretty tragic run of injuries which probably kept me out for a little bit and then if anything, it was just about getting everything right off the pitch like mentally and working hard and being happy.
”And before you know it, I was 30 years old 31 already. It's just one of them that I didn't really think about because I had so much else going on I needed to get right and stuff like that.
"So that was the priority [and] I think I feel like a call up is like a little reward for me for working hard and getting myself back to where I needed to be.”
Luongo joined the Blues in January after a half-season spell at Middlesbrough in which he didn't play a single minute.
Since moving to Portman Road he has made 23 starts and five sub appearances, scoring three times, and remarkably has tasted defeat only once.
Regarding Town’s excellent start to their Championship campaign, he added: ”We’re doing well, it's only 11 games in but I think everyone knows how important a start is.
"So we'll just see how it goes. We're doing well but we we've got a good group and we'll just keep doing what we do well and just taking every game as it comes.”