Remember, remember the fifth of November. While the English made a nursery rhyme to remind them of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, Australian football fans prefer to commemorate the day before, as it was the date an Aussie blew English football apart with one of the Premier League’s greatest individual performances.  

“A display of almost flawless marksmanship” roared the BBC. “One of the most lethal displays of finishing ever seen in the Premiership,” concurred an English regional paper.

When Mark Viduka single-handedly dismantled Liverpool while at Leeds in 2000, it was the high point of a great career. The unlikely 4-3 victory came through four Viduka goals after Liverpool had raced into an early 2-0 lead.

The ‘Dukes Show’ which followed was a moment of Australian footballing magic, which matches anything our countrymen have achieved overseas. What makes Viduka’s incredible haul even more amazing, aside from the situation and opposition, is the quality of every one of his four finishes.

Most hat-tricks include a penalty, set-piece or slice of fortune. Not Viduka’s. Every one of his goals on that November afternoon was a top-draw piece of finishing, including two deft chips, a header and tight-angle finish.

His stunning goals were front of mind when FourFourTwo were granted an audience with the elusive legend for this ‘EPL Legends’ special issue of the magazine.

Through the PFA we arranged a meeting with Viduka in their Melbourne office the day after Dukes received the Alex Tobin Medal at a gala dinner event to honour his quite remarkable career.

The previous evening the whole of Melbourne Crown’s Palladium Ballroom, which was filled with football’s most respected figureheads, rose to its feet to applaud Viduka’s walk to the stage to receive his honour. If you love your football, you can have nothing but respect for this Australian’s achievements.

The morning after the event, FourFourTwo is probably more anxious about this face-to-face interview than normal for three reasons.

Firstly, we’re hoping a deserving and now-retired Mark Viduka isn’t so hungover he struggles to answer our questions. Secondly, we are not sure if Viduka will hold any prolonged resentment toward his 2007 omission from our top 25 Aussie Players Ever List – an exclusion which made national news! Finally, Viduka has never had a reputation for being open with the media in a way other Socceroos have from his generation. Indeed Dukes has been a tough man for this magazine to nail down for an interview during the five-and-a-half years since we launched the title.

We arrive at the PFA offices 20 minutes early, take a seat in reception and fire up the laptop. With our questions prepared, we decide the best way to burn our excess time is by revisiting November 4, 2000 again. As we’re watching Dukes wheel away in joy after his game-winning fourth, the man himself enters our peripheral vision.

While Viduka later claims to be the “size of a tree trunk these days”, he is looking well and relaxed in shorts, a t-shirt and sunnies. Friendly, welcoming and probably the major footballer most devoid of any manner of arrogance that FourFourTwo has ever met, our time – which ran well over an hour in the end – was an absolute pleasure.

We sit down with a coffee to discuss a career which spanned 16 years, six clubs and over 250 goals at a rate of just over a goal every other game. The plan is to talk through every stage of that time, from teenage phenomenon in the old NSL and captaining Australia at their first World Cup in 32 years, through to making the decision to hang up his boots ahead of the World Cup in South Africa last year.

There is a lot to discuss with Dukes, so lets flashback to the early 1990s where a young Mark Viduka took the NSL by storm…

“I was playing at the AIS and after my scholarship finished I got a call to play down at the Knights,” says Viduka. “It was my first club – I’ve supported them through the good times and the bad. When it came to actually playing for the first team, I was over the moon. Also, to do so well for them was unbelievable. Nobody really expected too much of me when I was a young lad, everything was so new to me.”

Viduka recalls his early Knights days with the enthusiasm that, for example, Gary Neville has for Manchester United or Jamie Carragher feels for Liverpool. Considering the clubs Viduka went on to represent, it may seem surprising he would have such a high regard for the former NSL side.

“It was unbelievable. That period was a product of many years of training and dreaming of things. It all happened so quickly. It wasn’t necessarily the best time of my career but it was the most fun. I was naive, I was a young boy and I had stars in my eyes. I dreamed about playing like that. Everything just went well.”

Which is a bit of an understatement. In his time with Melbourne Knights, the young Viduka scored 40 goals in 48 appearances, was top scorer in the NSL, twice won the Johnny Warren Medal for Player of the Year and claimed the NSL title in 1995. All this as a teenager still finding his feet in the game.

“It was massive when we won the championship in 1995,” says Viduka. “We had such a good team and we went to Japan after we won the title to play a tour. At the time, Salvatore ‘Toto’ Schillachi was finishing his career for Jubilo Iwata. I played really well in the tour and scored a couple of nice goals.

“I got an offer to stay in Japan, while I also had an offer from Dortmund to play with Ned Zelic. They were very keen because I was over there with the young Socceroos as well. Dortmund sent me a contract to look through and sign.”

As tempting as an offer to join the Bundesliga giants was, Viduka, proud of his Croatian heritage, received some other interest that was impossible to ignore.

“At that time the Croatian president Franjo Tudjman was visiting Australia. He asked someone: ‘Who is the best footballer in Australia?’, and someone told him it was me! A family friend called me up and said Tudjman wanted to have lunch with me and my parents.

“He was in Melbourne, so we met up at a place in Richmond. He said: ‘You are a great player, I want you to come play for Dinamo Zagreb. We’re building a team to play in the Champions League and we want you to come and promote our club and our country.’

“It was totally out of the blue. I never really thought about playing there before. He actually wanted me
to come back with him there and then on his private jet.

“But I needed some time. I was a young boy, just 19. I told him to give me some time to think about it. I took a few weeks and realised it was a good opportunity to see my heritage, and see where my family comes from.”

A career in Europe had started, but just a month after Viduka’s arrival in Croatia, civil
war broke out.

“At first it was a bit of a culture shock. I came from a western culture in Australia. Croatia is an old communist country and it was different making the move to a place like that, which was at war at the time. Also the football was different. In Australia we were just semi-professionals. To jump into that sort of environment was a real learning curve for me.”

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All of that did not affect Viduka’s performances though, as his regular flow of goals allowed Dinamo Zagreb to win the league and cup double for three consecutive years.

The problem for Viduka was not his performances, more that he was signed by president Tudjman, an increasingly loathed figure within Croatia.

Viduka explains he was having a tough time when Dinamo Zagreb were paired against Scottish giants Celtic in the Champions League. 

“At the time of the Celtic game I was looking to move on in my career,” he says.

“During the game I did particularly well against their two centre-backs, Marc Rieper and Alan Stubbs. They were bloody and bruised after the game, and they told the Celtic coach Jozef Venglos to sign me!”

Venglos moved quickly to express his interest in Viduka, but it was the return fixture at Celtic Park which convinced Dukes himself.

“The atmosphere at that Celtic Park game was unbelievable and I’ve always had a soft spot for Celtic. They are a Catholic club and while I’m not really all that religious, my dad always told me that if you go for someone in Scotland, you go for Celtic.”

In December 1998 Celtic signed Viduka for £3.5 million ($5.6m), but on arrival at his new club he cited stress and voiced a need to return to Australia. It didn’t impress the passionate Celtic fans who were slipping behind fierce rivals Rangers in the league.

As Viduka explains it now, he simply needed to clear his head for a while after a tough end to his time in Croatia.

“The president brought me to the country and people saw me as his man. He started losing popularity politically and people turned on me. It wasn’t just the football involved: there was the politically-motivated side and the footballing side.

“Once I got to Celtic I thought I needed to clear my head after all the Croatian shit. [Celtic coach] Jozef Venglos was a very understanding man. I said to him, ‘Look Jo, I can’t play for you right now. I want to go home and clear my head a little bit.’ He was fine with that. He told me to take a month off and head home. The Scottish press took a different angle on it and they began making some stuff up.”

Despite the rocky start, when Viduka did begin his career on the pitch, the burly Aussie flourished in the Scottish Premier League, reasoning that the physical nature of the Scottish game suited his style.

“They played a different type of game in Croatia – it was more about 11 individuals than a team of 11 players. In the British style, it is much more of a team emphasis and that suited me much more as I was raised in that environment,” says Viduka.

“Dinamo Zagreb had Robert Prosinecki in the midfield. He was an unbelievable player but he was an individual player. When you play with someone like that who holds onto the ball, as a striker you have to know when you’re going to come and collect it off him. Whereas in the British game, it was more of a flowing game – get the ball up as quickly as possible. It’s not necessarily direct, long ball, but use the team to get the ball up there.”

Viduka had an incredible goals per game ratio in Scotland, bagging 30 strikes in just 37 games. Partnering with the equally free-scoring Swede Henrik Larsson, Celtic managed to win the CIS Insurance Cup, but despite Dukes’ brilliant season, everything wasn’t perfect.

“Despite my performances, the team was in turmoil,” says Viduka. “We changed managers three times quickly. I had Venglos, then John Barnes, Kenny Dalglish and Tommy Burns.”

At that time Leeds United, with their young manager David O’Leary, were a club on the rise. The Irishman had been monitoring Viduka as his Celtic career flourished and it was an interest that filtered back to Viduka.

“Leeds had sent [assistant] Eddie Gray to watch me at Celtic,” says Viduka. “They showed interest and told me they wanted me to come over and play. It was a difficult decision but when I looked at Leeds, they were on the rise. They had just qualified for the Champions League and it was a good chance.”

In June 2000, after months of speculation surrounding his future, Viduka signed with Leeds for £7m ($11.3m).

“We turned Leeds into an Aussie club!” says Viduka with gleeful pride. “We had Jacob Burns, Paul Okon, Danny Milosevic – there was a bit of a contingent going. I think a lot of Aussies began to follow Leeds because of us.

“All the players were young and there was a really good atmosphere. We worked really hard for each other and everyone stuck together.”

Signing the likes of England defender Rio Ferdinand for a then-British record £18m ($29m) from West Ham had Leeds fans believing that glory was around the corner. Instead what was lurking was a financial implosion that sent the famous club on a perilous downward spiral.

“We got to the semi-finals of the Champions League with that team and we were in contention for the top five right up until the financial situation took its toll,” says Viduka.

It was that failure to make the top five which cost Leeds, as without the golden pot of money Europe’s biggest competition offered, the hefty wage structure the club had been built upon could not be maintained. Leeds turned from title contenders to relegation-threatened crisis club. Viduka was left in the dark about the extent of the club’s plight.

“I didn’t know how much money the club had. As a player, you assume everything is fine. We really didn’t know anything about it. We were in the Champions League to the end and that brought in a lot of money. We naturally assumed everything was good,” says Viduka.

“You look at Liverpool now and what sort of a club they were. A little bit of financial instability has turned them into a completely different club in terms of on-field performance. We were subject to a lot of negative publicity at the time. We were constantly in the papers for the wrong things and it took its toll on the players. It just started to unravel.

“You want to go out there and do the best you can as a player, but when there’s instability like that in any job your mind goes off. It went from the players to everybody – the staff, the cleaners, and the groundsmen. There was so much instability.”

The 2002-03 campaign for Leeds – who had lost many of their stars including Ferdinand – saw the club’s struggles continue as they narrowly avoided relegation. Ironically, it was probably one of the finest seasons of Viduka’s career, as he struck 20 goals in the Premier League alone. Aussie team-mate Harry Kewell was equally unstoppable, firing in 14 goals and providing several assists for his green and gold teammate. This should have been an Aussie duo chasing silverware, not fighting relegation.

The biggest endorsement of the Aussie pair’s worth came on April 5, 2003, when Leeds travelled to London to take on Charlton, a solid mid-table Premier League side.

“The game against Charlton? That was such a great occasion,” says Viduka. “We won 6-1! I got a hat-trick and Harry got two.

“We were struggling and heading towards relegation. I personally think the sacking of David O’Leary in 2002 was a big thing for us. Up until then, we finished fourth or fifth and then all of a sudden we turned up to training and we didn’t have a manager. It ended up being Terry Venables. When he came, he probably didn’t know about the club’s financial situation either.

Continued on next page…

“All of a sudden we began to sell players and we got to the point where we were in a real fight to stay up. Before that Charlton game, we gathered around and said, ‘Look guys, we have to get together and dig deep. Even if we don’t win this, we have to not lose and put in a good performance.’ We were conceding too many goals – too many last minute goals too. That Charlton game turned the tide for us and helped keep us up.”

Despite surviving that season the following campaign – which included several match-winning goals from Viduka in March and April – saw Leeds relegated from the Premier League. All of Leeds’ remaining star players, Viduka included, were then sold-off at a cut price as the club prepared for the financial reality of life outside the top flight. Viduka remained in the north, with Middlesbrough this time.

“I had other offers at the time, but no one was as keen as Middlesbrough. It was a good guaranteed move because I didn’t have to move from my house! It was a safe move for my family because they were in a familiar environment. I enjoyed it. The personnel around the training centre and the people at the club made it good. Being a part of the club was nice thanks to the fans and the people involved,” says Viduka.

It was a strange first season for Viduka at Boro. Although he impressed when he was on the pitch, injuries stopped him from finding any kind of goal-scoring form. The following campaign, the 2005-06 season, was a very different story with Viduka in unstoppable form in all competitions for Middlesbrough, with his goalscoring in double figures early on.

As with Kewell at Leeds, Viduka found himself excelling in the ranks of a Premier League side with a fellow Aussie from our ‘Golden Generation’ of Socceroos. Both Mark Schwarzer and Viduka took to the field in May 2006 as Middlesbrough battled Sevilla in the UEFA Cup final. The Spanish swept Boro aside 4-0 that day though, as a campaign of mixed fortunes (Boro finished just 14th in the league) ended in disappointment.

The following season was Viduka’s last under contract at Middlesbrough, and after notching 19 goals there was much interest in the striker. And it was yet another northern English side that won
his signature.

“I was really excited about the prospect of signing for Newcastle. I played against them a few times with Alan Shearer, and I was a big admirer of Alan. I was also a big fan of the club.

“I signed a two-year deal at Newcastle in 2007 and I thought: ‘I’m going to do my best here’. I was getting older. Things started to affect me, niggles and injuries, but in the end I was disappointed I couldn’t play more games for them.”

Viduka proved less popular with Newcastle fans who felt their handsomely-paid striker was not doing everything he could to return to the fray. It’s an indictment Viduka strongly denies.

“I hated being in the physio room all the time,” says Viduka. “I love training with the ball. I wasn’t a guy who liked long distance running or short sprints… I loved being competitive and taking on players. When I couldn’t do that I was very upset.”

Viduka explains that he had a persistent Achilles problem at Middlesbrough, an injury he admitted it was possible to play with, but one that proved “very painful”.

At Newcastle, Viduka claims the injury worsened. “I’d go to training and strain it, and then it would take three weeks before I could walk again. It was frustrating because I couldn’t do anything about it.”

The 2008-09 season at Newcastle was another disappointing one for both the club and Viduka. With their striker out injured, the Toon were dragged into a relegation battle they were unable to stave off. There was hope up until the season’s end, including a 3-1 win over Middlesbrough in May which dragged Newcastle out of the relegation zone. Viduka produced a man-of-the-match performance to give fans hope. It wasn’t to be though as Newcastle slipped out of the top flight and Viduka was released from his contract.

After spending so much of his Newcastle career on the sidelines, alongside only being able to play with medical assistance due to his Achilles problems, Viduka had a big decision to make about playing on in the 2009-10 season. There was a huge carrot on offer if Viduka could get himself somewhere close to match-fit: the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

Fulham, led by experienced coach Roy Hodgson, came in for Viduka before that pivotal World Cup season.

“I thought about the injury and the fact I didn’t have the drive any more,” says Viduka. “When I went to Fulham I told Roy Hodgson about it and he respected me for it. I said, ‘Roy, I don’t have the drive, I don’t have the same excitement’. I thought, if I went into the club without the same drive that I needed, it can’t be good. Either I would get injured again or
not perform. I told them I couldn’t do it.”

And that signaled the end of the line for Viduka’s career. There was no farewell game. Just a sad limp to the sidelines as injury and lack of desire curtailed the Viduka express. Despite a clubless season, Australians hoped they would see him return, either at the World Cup or even for a final season in the A-League.

Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek certainly left the door ajar for Viduka if he could get himself fit ahead of South Africa: “I always said that Mark is always on the list when he’s fit and when he’s playing.”

But what of an A-League return? Was Viduka ever tempted by an Australian swansong?

“Both Melbourne Victory and Heart were interested,” says Viduka. “I didn’t really want to go anywhere outside of Melbourne. But again the question was my desire to play. If I didn’t have it to play in the best league in the world, would I have it here?

“I don’t really follow either of those two Melbourne sides but I probably would have picked the Heart because of my old mates Josip Skoko, John Aloisi and Clint Bolton. I had more people that I was close with at the Heart.”

We guess Heart fans can only dream what might have been, but Viduka concluded our interview by explaining that he is happy with retired life. He has a young family to look after, a yacht he likes to frequent in Croatia and plans to do his coaching badges alongside close friend Skoko.

He has not tied his flag to a definite career in coaching, but pending how he takes to studying for the badges, we might see Viduka return in a coaching capacity soon enough.

If he does take that role on the bench, we wonder how many of his future players will find themselves on YouTube watching their coach score that famous four-goal haul against Liverpool in 2000?

Continued on next page…

Dukes’ Question Questions:


Socceroos debut
“I was 18 and it was a friendly series against South Africa. The first game was in Adelaide and the second in Sydney. I was ecstatic to be involved with it all, it really was the best time. Ask any player about it, ask Rooney when his best time was. He’ll say it was back then when you were up and coming. Now there’s so much pressure compared to that stage. Now, Rooney can’t go into a nightclub without people hounding him for a photo. When he was younger, no-one gave a shit! He could go to brothels and do whatever he wanted!”

Picking Australia over Croatia
“I was capped as a youngster for Australia, but when I went to Croatia, they tried to get me to play for Croatia and had a look to see if it was possible. To be honest, while I am from Croatian heritage, I was raised in Australia. I see myself as an Australian and I am very happy with how things turned out.”

Beating Uruguay in 2005
“I was gutted after I missed the penalty. It was a massive night but it was also personally disappointing as I wasn’t able to contribute to the win. That night was full of mixed emotions – I was happy we got through but also disappointed.”

Playing in the 2006 World Cup
“We had a very tough group. When you look back, they were all very good. Japan was the best in Asia at the time, Brazil and Croatia are also two top teams. We did really well to get to the second stage. But again, we were all disappointed with how it ended. We felt hard done by from the soft penalty against Italy. To go that far and to get taken out in that way was really hard to swallow.”

Guus Hiddink
“Guus was the best manager I’ve ever had. In terms of his man-management, he has the skills but he can also convey brilliantly what he wants from the players. I’ve been involved in football for a very long time and not many managers have that. I was really proud when he made me captain, because I admired him as a manager and he believed in my ability to lead the team.”

Scoring less for the Socceroos than for his clubs
“With the national team it felt more like there were less people in that final third. The ball would come from further out and I would have to hold it and wait for someone else to come into play. When you play with someone else, automatically you have a player out there and it takes the attention off you. Because I wasn’t the type of player who could easily sprint away, it limited my ability to play that role. I found that I got into less goal-scoring situations than with my clubs. Whether it’s because I wasn’t good enough or because of the system. I know that I went into every national team game with the same mind frame as with my club.”

Toughest player ever faced?
“Probably [Argentine Roberto] Ayala. He wasn’t very big but he was tough as nails.”

Best goal you ever scored?
“There are a few of them. Goals are objective: some like them from long distance and some like them with some ball skills. I remember I scored one against Charlton at Middlesborough in the quarter-final of the FA Cup. I got the ball in the box, shimmied a few times and did a bit of a slalom before sliding it into the goal.”

Favourite strike partner?
“I like Henrik Larsson. I liked him as a player because he was a good finisher but he was unselfish. If he could create something he would always pass it. He was also a really good bloke. Under-rated but really brilliant. Also [Leeds striker Alan Smith] Smithy, I loved playing with Smithy.”

Biggest regret?
“I would have loved to play for Manchester United, and I almost had the chance. I don’t think I can count it as a regret because it wasn’t in my hands, but I had talks with Sir Alex Ferguson and it was between me and Louis Saha over who United would sign. As a kid, I was always a United fan. I was actually in Fergie’s house discussing it but in the end they opted to go with Saha.”

Not making FourFourTwo’s Top 25 Aussies Ever list…
“Somebody mentioned it to me while I was overseas. When you are overseas you’re playing games constantly and I didn’t really see the reactions. I’ve been criticised and worshipped on and off so you get used to it. I would love to have been included and to have been the best footballer I could been because it is nice for people to recognise you. But it’s out of your control.”

On his four-goal haul against Liverpool in 2000…
“People ask me a lot about that game and it was a match where everything just fell for me. It just happened to be against Liverpool! It was a good battle; we were challenging for the top three spots at the time. Everything just fell for me in that game. Four times I got a sniff of the goal and I just took them all. Some days you get four sniffs and don’t take one of them.”
 

This article appeared in the May 2011 issue of Australian FourFourTwo magazine. To buy back copies of this issue call 03-8317-8121 with a credit card to hand.

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