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.

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