The new poster boy of Australian football has substance to go with his undoubted style. And with the temperament of a leader, the captain’s armband beckons...
When the Socceroos touched down in Australia recently they were on the eve of a 10-day rollercoaster ride.
Seemingly, they were simply back to face a couple of teams, farewell some battle-scarred team-mates, do a round of interviews and thank the hordes who partied in the wee morning hours while watching Germany 2006.
With a showdown against South American powerhouse Paraguay and an Asian Cup qualifier against Bahrain beckoning, there was plenty on the plate.
But a media storm started brewing early on, as media zeroed in on Mark Schwarzer’s comments that Guus Hiddink and Zeljko Kalac didn’t quite handle things the way the Boro ’keeper felt they should have. However it wasn’t until the team was scheduled to report to camp that the proverbial poo hit the fan…
In the absence of World Cup captain Mark Viduka, it was Craig Moore who was to step into the breach. The Newcastle defender has 36 caps to his name and had already captained the team pre-Hiddink. But when he failed to catch his Brisbane-bound flight from Sydney all hell broke loose as the media scratched deep to find out he’d been out late celebrating with Kalac and Tony Popovic, sending the FFA into damage control.
Watching it all was Lucas Neill, who had enjoyed a relatively low-key arrival back home. Most of his time had been spent handling an ever-growing harem of women and shooting ads for his sponsors. But the following day, it was Neill who would emerge to take the coveted mantle of the Socceroo captaincy.
Boldly he declared, “I want to win the Asian Cup and I want to help Australia qualify for the next World Cup – as the captain, if possible.”
If we needed a leader with confidence to fill in, we’d chosen well. Clearly it was something Neill enjoyed and an appointment that many observers felt should have come sooner.
Whether it’s now or post-Asian Cup/post-Viduka, Neill has all the right attributes to not only lead the side but take football in Australia to the “lofty heights” that everyone keeps speaking about. He performs on the field, has the looks and even has the respect of the typical Aussie boof who doesn’t like football. If anyone is to be catapulted into being a household name, Neill is the obvious choice. And importantly, the enormous task of helping maintain the momentum of the sport in Australia isn’t something that’s lost on him either.
“I’m sorry, I just need to calm down a bit… it’s a bit like a circus,” Neill says breathlessly as he jumps in our car. After holding a press conference with Socceroo coach Graham Arnold, Neill joined FourFourTwo en route to making a new ad for Nike+iPod in Sydney’s Centennial Park.
This rock star treatment is new for all of the Socceroos, who have returned home as sporting heroes. To a lesser extent, the treatment had already started following their exploits against Uruguay but this time they were being mobbed like never before. It was at appearances in Brisbane and Sydney just days before that the extent of their new fame really hit home.
Being an instant rock star in your own home town must be a strange...
“Yeah, it’s been a long time coming,” he says. “It’s nice to be getting some acknowledgement for our success on the field. It’s very humbling to have people always wanting to come and have photos with you and get autographs. There’s a real hype surrounding it, which is great because it fills stadiums and now makes our jobs a whole lot easier. I suppose we feel pleased with ourselves that we’ve been partly responsible for that with our success on the field.”
Off the field, Neill is very measured and thoughtful. As a player who has been in the squad since 1996, he now represents the generation that is bridging the gap between the older group (Schwarzer, Moore, Kewell) with the new generation (Kennedy, Beauchamp, Sarkies). As someone who outwardly seems so suited to the role, does he feel like he’s a leader?
“I feel like an important part of the team and I suppose because of my position on the field I have to communicate a lot and I have a very important role,” he laughs. “So as a result of that, yeah, I suppose I feel responsible. It’s nice to know that people look to you for leadership qualities and I like that responsibility. And when people look toward you all the time you have to be performing at your best and playing the way people expect you to play because they’ve put you on that pedestal.”
Ex-US President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “A good leader can’t get too far ahead of his followers.” Neill certainly has the respect of his team-mates and the way he earned it was the best and quickest way to do so – with his performances.
In the four games of our World Cup campaign, Neill was by far our most consistent player. In hindsight, it may be said that it was naïve of Neill to go to ground in desperation against Italy, but without his contribution we would certainly not have been in the knockout stages in the first place. Neill saved our bacon on a number of occasions in all three round robin games.
With the adulation of the public so overwhelming, Neill is well aware that he has inspired a new generation of young Australian footballers. But he remains coy about how much effect and inspiration he has had over the younger Socceroos, even though he himself was in awe of the senior players when he first joined the ranks.
“No, I don’t know whether they are or aren’t looking [to him as inspiration]. But I’m going to try and influence them and pass on what I’ve learnt in the game just like the guys that are older than me did for me when I was younger. It’s all a learning curve and if I can help my team-mate, whether he wants help or not, it’ll help the team.
“If you can get five or six strong personalities in the team then naturally it makes the team a better performing team. It makes you more organised and as a result it means you win more than you lose. There’s a lot more to leadership than just wearing an armband,” he says.
Who exactly did Neill himself look up to as a young Socceroo? In his debut game against Saudi Arabia in 1996, the team had names including Carl Veart, Kevin Muscat, Paul Okon, Steve Corica and Paul Agostino as well as Popovic, Kewell, Schwarzer and Kalac.
“All of them!” he responds. “All of them for all sorts of different reasons. You know, I don’t want to single out any one particular player because I think it could be insulting to other players if I didn’t mention them so… In every team you go into you always listen to what the older guys have to say because they’ve obviously been around a long time and they know what the differences are between right and wrong. As long as you don’t use it all as gospel but try and take something out of every lesson, then that puts you in a good position.”
When it comes to football captaincy, there’s the theory that the most effective captains tend to be playing at the back in defence. As a centre back himself, FourFourTwo put the theory to Neill. But he dismissed the theory and elected not to use it as an opportunity to press home his claims to the role. Understandably, the captaincy is something that Neill – or any of the other Socceroos would welcome – but he’s also happy to bide his time should Mark Viduka reclaim the spot.
“No (I disagree),” he replies bluntly “I’ve had strikers as captains and goalies as captains and midfielders as captains. To be captain is to be someone who’s a representation of the team, epitomises the attitude of the team and is willing to be responsible in good times and in bad.
“A leader can be any position on the field but there are different forms of leadership. There’s communication in leadership and there’s performance. There’s no better example for your team to follow than your own performance on the field and there’s no better way to help the team than to communicate. I think we’ve got a few leaders in this team, me being one of them. I’m just the one who happens to flick the coin at the start of the game.”
The Socceroo culture has often been spoken about, and the team harmony in Germany is something that has been written almost as much as the team’s performance itself. With the retirements of Popovic, Kalac, Stan Lazaridis and Tony Vidmar the generational change is now in full effect and a number of young and fringe Socceroos are being tested.
So will the team’s culture be able to cope with a new wave, and new blood? Is the Socceroo culture welcoming?
“The game has changed now to the point where age is irrelevant. It matters about quality on the field because no one cares if an old guy is playing or a young guy is playing. All anyone cares about is performing and winning games. You pick the best team for the job regardless of reputation, regardless of age and it’s all about who’s going to be able to do the best job for the team and that’s something that we’ve got for the Australian team.
“No one is better than anyone else, there’s no reputation bigger than any other reputation... that’s certainly the attitude in the camp and as a result everybody plays as a team because no one’s out for their own personal success. We’re out for team success and everyone’s rewarded.”
The World Cup has done wonders for Australian football on every visible level, but on plenty of more subtle levels below the surface too. The England-based players are currently trying to start a new tradition of more regular catch-ups and dinners to stay in touch, which is something they vowed to do while in Germany. Prior to returning home for the Paraguay and Bahrain games, Neill and Rovers’ team-mate Brett Emerton met up with Cahill, Viduka and Josip Skoko for dinner in Manchester.
“We’re starting to do it more. The timetable of the Premier League makes it very difficult for us. But it’s always great when we get together, especially when we’ve all come together through an experience like the World Cup.
“When you go into camp all the boys are just worried about how someone else is getting on and you want to hear stories about different people’s lifestyles. That’s why there’s such a buzz around camp every time we get together. Everyone’s so pleased to hear somebody else’s war stories. We’re a very strong unit and I think there’ll be a lot of friends, not only during football, but after it as well.”
The remainder of the year will be huge in the life of Lucas Neill. When the European transfer window opens again in January, Liverpool are almost certain to re-open interest in “our” Lucas after impressing them less than 24 hours after returning from Australia in a 1-1 result. Blackburn won’t be giving in though, having recently used the captaincy as a deal sweetener to keep him.
And the issue surrounding the Australian captaincy isn’t likely to go away either. While Mark Viduka has committed to the Asian Cup, there may be some logic in passing the baton on now, for the side to settle as we look to the 2010 World Cup. The captaincy lifted Viduka’s spirits immeasurably though, so Graham Arnold will have some issues to mull over.
Armband or not, Lucas is a leader of the new generation of Socceroos, and his rise from Sydney schoolboy to national hero has been swift. Something tells us there’s a few more chapters in the Lucas Neill story still to be told.
Seemingly, they were simply back to face a couple of teams, farewell some battle-scarred team-mates, do a round of interviews and thank the hordes who partied in the wee morning hours while watching Germany 2006.
With a showdown against South American powerhouse Paraguay and an Asian Cup qualifier against Bahrain beckoning, there was plenty on the plate.
But a media storm started brewing early on, as media zeroed in on Mark Schwarzer’s comments that Guus Hiddink and Zeljko Kalac didn’t quite handle things the way the Boro ’keeper felt they should have. However it wasn’t until the team was scheduled to report to camp that the proverbial poo hit the fan…
In the absence of World Cup captain Mark Viduka, it was Craig Moore who was to step into the breach. The Newcastle defender has 36 caps to his name and had already captained the team pre-Hiddink. But when he failed to catch his Brisbane-bound flight from Sydney all hell broke loose as the media scratched deep to find out he’d been out late celebrating with Kalac and Tony Popovic, sending the FFA into damage control.
Watching it all was Lucas Neill, who had enjoyed a relatively low-key arrival back home. Most of his time had been spent handling an ever-growing harem of women and shooting ads for his sponsors. But the following day, it was Neill who would emerge to take the coveted mantle of the Socceroo captaincy.
Boldly he declared, “I want to win the Asian Cup and I want to help Australia qualify for the next World Cup – as the captain, if possible.”
If we needed a leader with confidence to fill in, we’d chosen well. Clearly it was something Neill enjoyed and an appointment that many observers felt should have come sooner.
Whether it’s now or post-Asian Cup/post-Viduka, Neill has all the right attributes to not only lead the side but take football in Australia to the “lofty heights” that everyone keeps speaking about. He performs on the field, has the looks and even has the respect of the typical Aussie boof who doesn’t like football. If anyone is to be catapulted into being a household name, Neill is the obvious choice. And importantly, the enormous task of helping maintain the momentum of the sport in Australia isn’t something that’s lost on him either.
“I’m sorry, I just need to calm down a bit… it’s a bit like a circus,” Neill says breathlessly as he jumps in our car. After holding a press conference with Socceroo coach Graham Arnold, Neill joined FourFourTwo en route to making a new ad for Nike+iPod in Sydney’s Centennial Park.
This rock star treatment is new for all of the Socceroos, who have returned home as sporting heroes. To a lesser extent, the treatment had already started following their exploits against Uruguay but this time they were being mobbed like never before. It was at appearances in Brisbane and Sydney just days before that the extent of their new fame really hit home.
Being an instant rock star in your own home town must be a strange...
“Yeah, it’s been a long time coming,” he says. “It’s nice to be getting some acknowledgement for our success on the field. It’s very humbling to have people always wanting to come and have photos with you and get autographs. There’s a real hype surrounding it, which is great because it fills stadiums and now makes our jobs a whole lot easier. I suppose we feel pleased with ourselves that we’ve been partly responsible for that with our success on the field.”
Off the field, Neill is very measured and thoughtful. As a player who has been in the squad since 1996, he now represents the generation that is bridging the gap between the older group (Schwarzer, Moore, Kewell) with the new generation (Kennedy, Beauchamp, Sarkies). As someone who outwardly seems so suited to the role, does he feel like he’s a leader?
“I feel like an important part of the team and I suppose because of my position on the field I have to communicate a lot and I have a very important role,” he laughs. “So as a result of that, yeah, I suppose I feel responsible. It’s nice to know that people look to you for leadership qualities and I like that responsibility. And when people look toward you all the time you have to be performing at your best and playing the way people expect you to play because they’ve put you on that pedestal.”
Ex-US President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “A good leader can’t get too far ahead of his followers.” Neill certainly has the respect of his team-mates and the way he earned it was the best and quickest way to do so – with his performances.
In the four games of our World Cup campaign, Neill was by far our most consistent player. In hindsight, it may be said that it was naïve of Neill to go to ground in desperation against Italy, but without his contribution we would certainly not have been in the knockout stages in the first place. Neill saved our bacon on a number of occasions in all three round robin games.
With the adulation of the public so overwhelming, Neill is well aware that he has inspired a new generation of young Australian footballers. But he remains coy about how much effect and inspiration he has had over the younger Socceroos, even though he himself was in awe of the senior players when he first joined the ranks.
“No, I don’t know whether they are or aren’t looking [to him as inspiration]. But I’m going to try and influence them and pass on what I’ve learnt in the game just like the guys that are older than me did for me when I was younger. It’s all a learning curve and if I can help my team-mate, whether he wants help or not, it’ll help the team.
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| Blue Steel or Magnum? |
“If you can get five or six strong personalities in the team then naturally it makes the team a better performing team. It makes you more organised and as a result it means you win more than you lose. There’s a lot more to leadership than just wearing an armband,” he says.
Who exactly did Neill himself look up to as a young Socceroo? In his debut game against Saudi Arabia in 1996, the team had names including Carl Veart, Kevin Muscat, Paul Okon, Steve Corica and Paul Agostino as well as Popovic, Kewell, Schwarzer and Kalac.
“All of them!” he responds. “All of them for all sorts of different reasons. You know, I don’t want to single out any one particular player because I think it could be insulting to other players if I didn’t mention them so… In every team you go into you always listen to what the older guys have to say because they’ve obviously been around a long time and they know what the differences are between right and wrong. As long as you don’t use it all as gospel but try and take something out of every lesson, then that puts you in a good position.”
When it comes to football captaincy, there’s the theory that the most effective captains tend to be playing at the back in defence. As a centre back himself, FourFourTwo put the theory to Neill. But he dismissed the theory and elected not to use it as an opportunity to press home his claims to the role. Understandably, the captaincy is something that Neill – or any of the other Socceroos would welcome – but he’s also happy to bide his time should Mark Viduka reclaim the spot.
“No (I disagree),” he replies bluntly “I’ve had strikers as captains and goalies as captains and midfielders as captains. To be captain is to be someone who’s a representation of the team, epitomises the attitude of the team and is willing to be responsible in good times and in bad.
“A leader can be any position on the field but there are different forms of leadership. There’s communication in leadership and there’s performance. There’s no better example for your team to follow than your own performance on the field and there’s no better way to help the team than to communicate. I think we’ve got a few leaders in this team, me being one of them. I’m just the one who happens to flick the coin at the start of the game.”
The Socceroo culture has often been spoken about, and the team harmony in Germany is something that has been written almost as much as the team’s performance itself. With the retirements of Popovic, Kalac, Stan Lazaridis and Tony Vidmar the generational change is now in full effect and a number of young and fringe Socceroos are being tested.
So will the team’s culture be able to cope with a new wave, and new blood? Is the Socceroo culture welcoming?
“The game has changed now to the point where age is irrelevant. It matters about quality on the field because no one cares if an old guy is playing or a young guy is playing. All anyone cares about is performing and winning games. You pick the best team for the job regardless of reputation, regardless of age and it’s all about who’s going to be able to do the best job for the team and that’s something that we’ve got for the Australian team.
“No one is better than anyone else, there’s no reputation bigger than any other reputation... that’s certainly the attitude in the camp and as a result everybody plays as a team because no one’s out for their own personal success. We’re out for team success and everyone’s rewarded.”
The World Cup has done wonders for Australian football on every visible level, but on plenty of more subtle levels below the surface too. The England-based players are currently trying to start a new tradition of more regular catch-ups and dinners to stay in touch, which is something they vowed to do while in Germany. Prior to returning home for the Paraguay and Bahrain games, Neill and Rovers’ team-mate Brett Emerton met up with Cahill, Viduka and Josip Skoko for dinner in Manchester.
“We’re starting to do it more. The timetable of the Premier League makes it very difficult for us. But it’s always great when we get together, especially when we’ve all come together through an experience like the World Cup.
“When you go into camp all the boys are just worried about how someone else is getting on and you want to hear stories about different people’s lifestyles. That’s why there’s such a buzz around camp every time we get together. Everyone’s so pleased to hear somebody else’s war stories. We’re a very strong unit and I think there’ll be a lot of friends, not only during football, but after it as well.”
The remainder of the year will be huge in the life of Lucas Neill. When the European transfer window opens again in January, Liverpool are almost certain to re-open interest in “our” Lucas after impressing them less than 24 hours after returning from Australia in a 1-1 result. Blackburn won’t be giving in though, having recently used the captaincy as a deal sweetener to keep him.
And the issue surrounding the Australian captaincy isn’t likely to go away either. While Mark Viduka has committed to the Asian Cup, there may be some logic in passing the baton on now, for the side to settle as we look to the 2010 World Cup. The captaincy lifted Viduka’s spirits immeasurably though, so Graham Arnold will have some issues to mull over.
Armband or not, Lucas is a leader of the new generation of Socceroos, and his rise from Sydney schoolboy to national hero has been swift. Something tells us there’s a few more chapters in the Lucas Neill story still to be told.
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