"After the Olympics I was packing my bags to fly back to Australia, when Pim Verbeek called me to play in the South Africa game in London and when I was there, there was a fair bit of interest from Werder Bremen in Germany. So I had a couple of weeks training with Fulham before heading over there.

"Bremen asked for me to stay for another five weeks while they sorted something out, but I made the decision that I needed to start playing again. I couldn't continue just training - more for my sanity than anything else. I'd given it a go, obviously things didn't work out so I needed to be smart about things and come home."

Another obstacle to Milligan's plans was the work permit situation. As a full-blooded Aussie, Milligan had no easy access to European working rights.

"The passport situation does make things very difficult and as a footballer how much time can you take out of actually playing and being on the field? I only missed eight games of the A-League, but that is a lot of games to miss in football. It would have been too much of an uphill battle if I decided to stay that bit longer.

"The only real way to play in Europe is getting my international caps up, but in order for me to get my caps back up I need to be playing regularly, and I'm very lucky that there is still a lot of qualifiers to go and a lot of them are based in Australia. Hopefully if the boys qualify early then more and more A-League boys will be involved. At the moment I'm just putting my head down and focusing on each week as it comes.

"Pim has shown a lot of loyalty to A-League players and is giving them a chance. Pim's very open-minded like that and he won't just dismiss players based on where they are playing. There are a lot of games coming up where it will be difficult for the European boys to be involved in, so the A-League boys will get their chance to prove themselves, we just need to take that chance with both hands."

Milligan admitted he had acknowledged the passport difficulties prior to boarding a European-bound plane, but felt there was little to lose at the time when a decision had to be made.

"It wasn't interfering contractually, because I was off contract, and with the Olympics it just seemed like a good time to keep myself ticking over and I thought it would be good preparation for the Beijing Olympics."

Milligan doesn't view his time in Europe as a wasted exercise and unsurprisingly felt the new surroundings have created a player with a refreshed approach to playing the game. He stressed the "different world" of European football.

"Australian football is heading in the right direction, but it still has nothing on England. Just the lifestyle they have over there and the intensity and the passion, not just from the players, but from people everywhere.

"To a degree it gave me that hunger back again to do well and succeed, whether that be in Australia or over there. Everybody in their careers, no matter what they do, has times when they question what they are doing. Being over there proved to me how much I love the game, how much the game has given to me and how much more I want to achieve."

Milligan, 23, afforded himself a philosophical approach to his botched Euro voyage and left the door ajar for another crack at the so-called "promised land".

"I went over there with a goal and I had expectations, but I knew my passport situation and the difficulties I would have even if I found a club who was interested in me. I went there with an open mind, but at the back of my mind I knew if it didn't work out, that I had every intention of coming home. 

"After being in Europe I don't think it's beyond me. Obviously every player aspires to play in Europe, but at the moment I'm just focusing on playing again and hopefully Pim recognises that and there will be another call up soon."

This article first appeared in the February 2009 issue of Australian FourFourTwo