Passport to fame
Michael’s not been afraid to travel in his football career, too. He has already played in England and New Zealand. In fact, at Blackpool in 2003, he was coached by a controversial former Hyundai A-League coach.

“Steve McMahon was the gaffer when I was at Blackpool,” recalls Theo. “He was very funny!”

But was McMahon any good? Again Theo pauses and laughs. “Well, he was a good player!”

Due to injury, Michael only played three games for the Seasiders. But he did get to play in arguably the greatest cup competition in the world. “The FA Cup was an amazing experience. I played in a third-round 3-1 Cup win over Torquay,” says the Victory number one. “It was a great experience. They live and breathe football.

“It was a party place on weekends,” he recalls of Blackpool, “with lots of hens parties, but a bit of a ghost town during the week. It was a pretty dodgy place actually but I wasn’t to know that.”

Prior to that spell with the Bloomfield Road side, he had a “frustrating” stint in 2001/2 with the Auckland Kingz in the old NSL. The side struggled but, as Theo recalls, “I had plenty to do.”

Aside from those two spells overseas, Melbourne state league club Bulleen and South Melbourne have had Michael on their books. “Bulleen has a great set up. I won a championship with the Zebras,” says Theo, who once saved two penalty attempts in a grand final shootout for the club.

But its his appearances in the Hyundai A-League with Victory that are gaining him the most notoriety.

Victory’s secret!
Forget all the talk about 200 training sessions in the off-season and the club’s new signings, the real key to success, according to Theo, is something completely different.

“Poker!” he says. “A lot of the guys take a pack of cards when we go interstate. We enjoy our poker. In fact, Musky [Kevin Muscat] is a good poker player. He has a great poker face.

“I think he had an opportunity to play in a celebrity poker tournament last year but we were training so he couldn’t make it. I’d like to play in a celeb poker match with him.

“Musky’s a huge example to everyone,” adds Michael. “He’s the best leader I’ve ever seen... he has such a persona and when he crosses that line, he gets white line fever.”



And when Theo himself walks across the white line, which does he prefer: Telstra Dome or Olympic Park? “Both have been great,” he says, “but the Dome is great. The atmosphere is like back in Europe. Grant Brebner was saying that he was playing in front of 6,000 back in Scotland then coming to this, well …”

However, with the example of Adelaide United last season peaking a shade early, can this drag down Victory in 2007? “Not really,” says Theo. “We’ve put in the hard yards. We wanted to win the premiership. We want to be in this position and then go on hopefully to the grand final.”

Look around the world. Almost every championship-winning side is built on strong defensive foundations. And those foundations start with the glovesman: Petr Cech at Chelsea, Clint Bolton from Sydney FC and Bayern Munich’s Ollie Kahn.

Now Melbourne Victory are confirmed as Premiers for the 2006/07 season and a 2008 move into Asia is beckoning, the strong foundations in place by the “Hands of God” Michael “Theo” Theoklitos will have much to do with that success.

Reproduced from TheFull90 – the official matchday magazine of the Hyundai A-League www.a-league.com.au Get it at the game!