Legacy: The Autobiography of Tim Cahill. Tim Cahill

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СКАЧАТЬ to another team and another tournament, and back again. By this point Sydney Olympic was home; I’d been there five years. I’d learned Greek, made great friends, become part of the culture. Now, after my experience with the NSW select team, I dreamed of making Olympic’s first team and playing for them in the NSL.

      The way the system worked, each year—regardless of how many years you’d played in the youth teams—you had to try out again. In my fifth year, I went to trial for the Olympic youth team, but despite my best efforts, I was not selected.

      When he asked why, my dad was told by one of the coaches, “Tim’s too small and not fast enough.”

      “Yeah?” my dad said. “Alright—we’ll see …”

      As it sank in, I realized that the coaches had essentially determined that I would never shine in the NSL, so they decided to drop me and develop younger team players they felt had more potential.

      I don’t want to fault the coaches completely. It could have been the case that at fourteen I was still too undeveloped physically, but all I knew at the time was that, emotionally, I was crushed.

      All my mates played in the team. I knew I was getting better every year; I knew I was giving my all in every match and in every training session. I knew I was progressing, but with their rejection I felt as if everything I had worked for was being closed off to me.

      My dad remained upbeat. He said we’d just hit a bump in the road and we’d continue the private training with Johnny Doyle. But it kept echoing in my mind: Too small. Not strong enough. Not fast enough …

      I said to my dad, “There’s got to be somewhere I can go to get stronger.”

      My parents did some looking around, then decided to send me to the Institute of Sport in Lidcombe. The institute is a world-class facility, set up to test athletes in every facet of their ability: speed, reaction time, vertical jump. I did a fifty-metre run; they timed it, but also made a video so we could review my form. They taught me how to jump more explosively and, for the first time, I had nutritionists analysing my diet. I was looking for a reason—some scientific explanation—as to why the hell I didn’t get picked for Sydney Olympic.

      It may have been nothing more than bad luck, but I’m not a big believer in blaming things on luck—good or bad. To this day I often say, “Luck is great, but if I want to be lucky I’ll go buy a lottery ticket.” If things don’t go your way, sometimes you have to do everything in your power to put yourself back in the position of achieving your goals.

      My failure to make the next level at Sydney Olympic filled me with doubt, had me believing, rightly or wrongly, that perhaps I wasn’t ready, that perhaps what the coaches were saying was true—I wasn’t tall enough, strong enough or fast enough.

      After completing the initial assessment at the institute, I was given a program to rework my body mechanics. “We’re going to change the way you run,” one of the instructors told me.

      They replayed the video of me, showing me how my arms flew out too wide, how my thigh movement could be improved. They had me change my running style by keeping my arms and legs in tight, close to my body, moving like a track-and-field sprinter: right-knee left-arm, left-knee right-arm.

      In reality, you don’t need blazing speed over distance to be a top footballer. Very rarely in open play are you covering fifty metres of the pitch at a full sprint. You only need to have explosive pace in those first ten or fifteen metres.

      That’s where the scientific analysis of my running paid dividends. Being quicker off the mark helped me beat my opponents and put me in position to receive a pass.

      Changing my running style didn’t come easily, but by working tirelessly on my coordination and rhythm, I made my running style more complete.

      My parents bought a small trampoline, which the instructors told me I should put in my bedroom, in front of the mirror, so I could watch myself. They recommended this as a way to study my form, running until I was out of breath. I also did lunges and sit-ups and push-ups and box-jumps—the basics of plyometrics.

      I went a bit crazy with it, I suppose. I did this same bloody routine every day until I was drenched in sweat. I can be an extremist when I’m trying to improve something and I reckon my friends and brothers, maybe even my parents, were looking at me saying, “Timmy’s finally gone round the bend.” While other kids were off doing what normal teenagers do after school—watching TV, hanging out at shopping centres—I was working out in the bedroom, sweat pouring off me.

      At the institute, they shot more video and we analysed it. I returned home and kept working on my form, kept telling myself, “I’m going to be a machine.” The institute, the plyometrics, the trampoline workout—they all helped.

      But I still needed to play football. Since I couldn’t play for Sydney Olympic, we had to find a club that would take me. My dad found yet another Greek club, Belmore Hercules, which played two divisions lower.

      Belmore Hercules is not quite as well known as Sydney Olympic, but it is still a proud club, founded in 1971. My dad and I went to Belmore for the trial and I told them I’d been playing for five years for Sydney Olympic. A few of the players and staff recognized me.

      By now, to be honest, Olympic’s rejection was a massive blow to my confidence, but it was also a reality check. I said to myself, “If you make it through trials, you’re playing here, in a lower division, because this is your proper level.”

      Luckily, I was selected. Once again, I was much younger than all the other players. At Hercules, there were Under-18s, Under-21s and then the adult first team—and at the age of fifteen I was by far the youngest kid in the Under-18s.

      My dad volunteered as one of the assistant managers, which I found a bit uncomfortable. I’d seen it plenty of times where one of the coaches was a parent of a kid in the team. People would snicker when the kid was named captain or played all ninety minutes just because his dad was on the touchline with a clipboard and a whistle. I didn’t want anyone thinking I’d made the starting squad because my dad was pulling strings. It was in fact quite the opposite, since my dad didn’t volunteer until I’d already been selected at trials. In the end, it didn’t matter—I knew that my work rate and quality on the pitch would speak for itself.

      Sean was our starting goalkeeper; I played as an attacking-midfielder, sometimes as an outright striker. It was one of the best footballing seasons I ever had. I started scoring a lot of goals, then after one particularly good match with the Under-18s, I was called in by the coach. “Tim, if you’re not too worn out, I think we should play you in the Under-21s as well.”

      I wanted the opportunity and played with both the Under-18s and the Under-21s. The season roared along until I suddenly found myself on a goal record and my name, for the first time, started appearing in the local press. The Greek papers were writing about me. The local Sydney sports writers were noticing me.

      And again, a lot of what had got me noticed was my heading: “Cahill jumps like a kangaroo.”

      I had never stopped training in how to head the ball, and would still practise with my dad, with Johnny Doyle and with friends. Those explosive jumping drills, squats, and lunges I’d been doing in my bedroom had made my natural leaping ability all that much more powerful. Even at less than 167 cm in height, I was often able to jump higher than defenders who were over 183 cm tall. It was due to a combination of factors: vertical leap, timing and desire. No one was going to out-leap me or out-muscle me as I planted my head on that cross.

      John СКАЧАТЬ