Western Sydney captain Nikolai Topor-Stanley has backed his A-League side to bounce back from a "crazy" Club World Cup defeat in which he was incorrectly shown a red card.

Saturday's 3-1 defeat to Mexico's Cruz Azul in Morocco was packed with controversy, with nothing more farcical than Topor-Stanley's ejection from the game in extra time.

Wanderers' protests fell on deaf ears when the centre back was dismissed after receiving a yellow card with the match locked at 1-1 and Western Sydney already down to 10 men.

Topor-Stanley had no knowledge of being shown a first yellow but it later emerged referee Noumandiez Doue had mistakenly attributed one to him instead of teammate Seyi Adeleke in the 53rd minute.

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"I had no knowledge of that (the first yellow)," Topor-Stanley said.

"The referee didn't tell me. Had I known, I'd have altered my decision making, as anyone does when they're on a yellow card.

"Clearly I thought that was my first yellow. I'm speechless, really.

"I thought I'd seen it all but this is another reminder that football is unpredictable at the best of times."

Western Sydney led 1-0 with two minutes to go in regular time and would have won through to a dream semi-final showdown with Real Madrid had they held on.

Instead, they will face Algerian side ES Setif in a fifth-placed playoff on Wednesday and Topor-Stanley says the must take positives from the fight they showed against six-times North American champions Cruz Azul.

"We overcame a lot. The conditions, decisions, whatever you want to call it.We battled to the end, we fought for each other and it was incredibly disappointing," he said.

"I've been involved in some crazy games but that was definitely up there.

"What do you do? We have to cop this on the chin, somehow, and find a way to move on."

Defender Shannon Cole said there were "a million different" reasons to stay motivated for the fifth-place playoff.

"The main one being we didn't get a chance to show ourselves today," Cole said.

"If we want to show the world what we're capable of in this tournament it has to be in the next game, so that's what the next few days are all about."