Legacy: The Autobiography of Tim Cahill. Tim Cahill

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СКАЧАТЬ with the lifestyle that revolves around freedom and nature and love of one’s family.

      That trip with my brother Sean to be with our grandmother was one of the greatest eye-openers for me. It helped me learn what’s really important—that life can be simple, without any luxuries, but still filled with satisfaction and fulfilment.

       BEATING THE ODDS

      THE BIGGEST STRIKE AGAINST ME at that age—and another reason I was often told I wasn’t being realistic about my dreams of being a professional footballer in England—was that I was still very small. In high school, I was only 165 cm tall and weighed only 55 kilos.

      Some of the stars of the global game, whose pictures I clipped out of glossy magazines and pinned up on my wall, weren’t much bigger. The two Brazilian strikers of the 1994 World Cup—Bebeto and Romario—had pride of place on my wall and were hardly giants. Romario had a stockier build, but on the pitch Bebeto was so slight he looked like a teenager who’d stolen his father’s shorts for the game—and yet in that 1994 World Cup he was a superstar. He routinely beat defenders, had incredible touch, laid effortless passes for Romario, and together they formed the most beautiful strike partnership.

      I was well aware that in the Australian mind-set of that time, I was nowhere near the height and weight and strength of a professional athlete—a striker who could outleap 183-cm tall central defenders to gain purchase on a header inside the penalty box. Australian coaches were scouting for the classic “target man” forward—a big No. 9 who could play with his back to goal in the mould of Gary Lineker or Marco van Basten.

      I wasn’t that kid, but one of the brilliant things about football is that your skills, technique and passion can counterbalance your opponent’s advantages in size and strength. Picture Maradona famously dribbling through the entire England defence in the 1986 World Cup—a masterpiece of close control, change of pace, feinting and balance—to score that match winner voted the “Greatest Goal of the Century”.

      To this day, people debate why football under-performs at the international level in certain countries—England is a prime example—and whether an emphasis on physical strength over technical skills at the youth development level is to blame. It’s a complex question, and I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I do know that when I was growing up, I played with quite a few smaller South American kids—gifted athletes with phenomenal touch and dribbling skills—who didn’t succeed in the Australian system. They quit football because they were told they were too small. It just wasn’t in fashion to favour technique over physique.

      Fast-forward a couple decades and it’s almost inconceivable how much the game has changed. Nowadays some of the best players in the world are only 165 cm, 168 cm or 170 cm tall. Guys like Messi, Xavi, Tevez—some of the most talented players in the game. But had they been in Australia in my schoolboy days, players as short as Tevez or Messi, or as slight as David Silva, would surely have been told they were too small and not strong enough to make it. In my opinion, a kid’s size—or lack of size—should never be seen as an impediment to success at the highest levels of football.

      Even at a young age I was aware that my size could be seen as a disadvantage, but I was determined that it would never stand in my way. By high school, I’d managed to gain a reputation as a top-club player; I also started to shine in school sport. I played in the Primary Schools Sports Association league. Then there came a chance to play for the representative school district team called Metropolitan East. This was a public school select team, in the same way that Canterbury Reps was a clubs’ select team.

      Playing for Metropolitan East was a significant milestone in my development. The squad was drawn from dozens of schools—Canterbury, Eastern Suburbs and St George—but only one kid per school was chosen. Even though my talent was still a bit raw, being selected was a recognition of my hard work.

      We played in an intense competition in Sutherland, in south Sydney, right next to Cronulla Oval, ten games going on at once against other district select squads.

      On days like that, you try to keep your wits about you on the pitch, but it’s such a nervous moment—you know if you do well you could potentially be selected to represent your state: the whole of New South Wales.

      We spent the entire day playing matches. Even at that age, I planned everything in my mind, hyper-analysing, trying to anticipate how to shape my performance.

      What did I need to do to stand out in a tournament like this, where there were so many good midfielders? Did I need to score goals? Did I need to be unselfish and more creative? Should I allow myself a few minutes of dribbling, bossing the play, or immediately lay-off a clever through-pass?

      One thing I knew: I had to impress. Youth football is a series of tests and trials, of potential opportunities and life-changing matches and tournaments, and I knew this was one of my first big chances to break through.

      After hours of pounding, intense action, I found myself sitting at the end of the tournament with hundreds of other kids, cross-legged on one of the pitches. All our parents were there as well and all the coaches in their light-blue tracksuits, every one of them with a clipboard: “When we call your name, please come forward. You’ve been selected for the preliminary squad for the New South Wales PSSA Team.”

      Various players would get called out, they’d stand—the adults would cheer.

      I’d already done the calculations: I figured there were so many matches going on simultaneously, the odds were that the coaches had seen at least four or five highly skilled midfielders who were taller and stronger than me. I told myself I’d better accept that I wouldn’t be called.

      A few of the lads from my representative squad had been chosen for their district teams and had played in the same tournament. Some of them had already been called and as their names were read, they stood up confidently, striding forward to form a line behind the coaches. They had an air that told me they’d known all along that they were head and shoulders better than the rest of us. It wasn’t cockiness; it was just confidence in their abilities.

      Then one of the coaches read out: “Metropolitan East. Tim Cahill …”

      My eyes shot open wide, I jumped to my feet and half-ran toward the rest of the guys who’d formed up in the queue behind the coaches. I had worked so hard for this, I was nearly in tears.

      Some of the guys selected were on a different planet. They were the best physical specimens, not just from our local schools or New South Wales, but in all of Australia. They were fast and strong. Some were enormous for that age: they looked like men with full moustaches, dark hair over their legs and arms, muscles like they were eighteen or nineteen years old.

      We have team photos of that NSW select squad—I look like a baby compared to some of them. We had one striker in the NSW team whose body was so well developed that when midfielders kicked the ball over the top to him, he’d burst onto it like an Olympic sprinter. He terrorised defenders, thundering down on them with that pace and his legs churning.

      The NSW team was in great form and we ended up winning the entire tournament. And yet, for some of those well-built kids, that select team was the pinnacle of their careers. Many of them stopped developing at fifteen or sixteen years old and never went further in football than that NSW representative team.

      It’s a lesson I learned only in hindsight: nothing is ever predetermined. It’s a constant reminder to work hard, stay focussed and never believe that your future is assured.

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