The machine that is Tim Cahill finally broke down after three years of almost continuous football. But the enforced layoff has only intensified his desire to win the Asian Cup.
By Neil Billingham
Tim Cahill’s body has had a tough few months… better make that a tough few years.
His nickname among the Everton faithful may be “Tiny Tim”, but he’s been making Herculean efforts for both club and country over the last few seasons.
Three years of unbroken football have finally come to an end due to two injuries which have ruined what was shaping up as another great campaign for Everton’s Australian midfielder.
The hope now is that his body can produce even more heroics and recover from a broken foot in time to play for the Socceroos in their first ever Asian Cup adventure this winter. Cahill broke the fifth metatarsal in his left foot in the Toffees’ 1-1 draw against Sheffield United in March.
Cahill is expected to be in the Socceroos starting line-up in Thailand against Oman on July 8 and if anything, after his injury lay-off, he’ll be fresh and raring to go. Not that he’s been lying back and putting his feet up in the mean time just because he can’t play.
“Everyone thinks that when footballers get injured they’re just sitting around waiting for the injury to get better,” says the 27-year-old. “When I did my medial ligament back in November I had about 10 days rest and thought I’d get even longer than that.
“But as it turned out I was in at the training ground three times a day – morning, noon and night, working hard trying to get the strength and power back in it. It was at a stage where I would have needed surgery if it didn’t work out, so I wasn’t resting at all.
“It tends to be like that with all injuries,” Cahill adds. “You need to keep the muscles strong and keep a certain level of fitness otherwise it will take even longer for you to come back.”
Having said that, surely taking away the routine of two matches a week and training with his team-mates must have given him a different perspective on
the game?
“I was working hard at the gym but when you’re not away at the weekends playing games it gave me a chance to look at football from the outside which was different. I got to see a lot of my family which was nice. There isn’t a day goes by when my two boys don’t cry for Daddy when I leave to go and play
or train, so to spend more time at home was great.”
Not that Cahill would complain about the full-time rigours of life as
a Premiership footballer or the responsibilities of being one of the senior member of the Socceroos. Few footballers have played as much football in the past three years as the Everton midfielder, but for him it’s always a pleasure, and never a chore.
“When I was growing up all I wanted to do was play football in England and play for Australia,” he says. “In the last three years I’ve represented my country at the Olympics, the Confederations Cup and the World Cup while I’ve been playing regularly for a great club in the Premiership.
“That’s the platform I’ve always wanted to be on, it’s what I’ve always strived to do. It sometimes takes a lot out of you but I feel I’ve got a duty to perform to the best of my ability every time I play,” Cahill says with determination. “It’s a big responsibility but I wouldn’t be doing myself justice and it wouldn’t be right on the fans if I didn’t give 100 percent every time I stepped onto the pitch.”
A Socceroo based in Europe has more demands placed on him than perhaps any other international player because of the extreme distances they are asked to travel. Australia’s admission into the Asian Football Confederation has exerted even more pressure on the minds and bodies of Socceroos players.
Since joining Asia, the Socceroos have played more meaningful matches, and as Australia’s recent 2-0 win against China showed, Football Federation Australia’s aim is to pick the best eleven players available at the time, giving Socceroos coach Graham Arnold a better opportunity to properly assess his European-based players wearing the Green and Gold. This selection policy is bound to further stir up the ever-fiery club versus country debate which inevitably rears its ugly head before international matches and tournaments.
It’s safe to assume Cahill’s manager at Everton, David Moyes – who has lost his star player’s services for the remainder of the English season – is less than happy about the scheduling of the Asian Cup. In a year where there is no World Cup or European Championship, July is usually the time for Premiership players to take a time-out, get away from the pressures of top-flight football and rest those weary limbs.
Assuming he’s fit in time, Cahill is looking forward to the new challenge, although he remains diplomatic about the club versus country debate.
“From a travel point of view it’s definitely a disadvantage joining the Asian Confederation,” admits Cahill. “We’ve got such a tight schedule with our club and now we’re being asked to play in places like Bahrain, Kuwait, South-East Asia and Australia, with some of the games being mid-week. It’s tough and David Moyes’ first interest is for Everton Football Club and that’s mine as well.
“But being a footballer,” Cahill continues, “if I’m playing for my country, that can only make me more of an asset to Everton and hopefully people appreciate and understand that playing for my country is one of the biggest things for me. It’s all about common sense and if I’m not 100 percent right for a match I won’t play. I think I’ve proved to the gaffer [David Moyes] that I can go away and I can come back and still be on top of my game”.
Indeed, in September, Cahill turned out for Everton against Middlesbrough only three days after playing for Australia against Bahrain in Sydney and less than 24 hours after landing back in the UK. Remarkably, Cahill started the Boro match and scored in a 2-1 defeat.
Cahill is fast becoming an expert on time zones and jet-lag and his next big trip will see him board the plane to Bangkok for the Socceroos’ Asian Cup debut, when they take on Oman on July 8.
After a successful World Cup, Australia is one of the early favourites to win the Asian Cup. Cahill however, despite a comfortable qualifying stage which saw Australia finish top of a group that included Bahrain and Kuwait, isn’t getting carried away. “We’re under a lot of pressure,” says the midfielder, who knows a bit about Asian opposition after putting two stunning goals past Japan in the World Cup.
“The biggest thing that people need to understand and be educated about is that there are a lot of Asian countries that have a good pedigree,” says Cahill. “Look at South Korea when Guus Hiddink was in charge of them. Japan and China are also good sides and we’ve got a lot of respect for them.
“Asian sides are usually very technical. When we played Bahrain in Sydney they were very good technically and were very difficult to break down. We won the match but it wasn’t easy and they gave us a few problems,” he admits. “It’s going to be really tough – we can definitely win the competition but only if we take the competition seriously.”
The group stage sounds easy enough: Oman, Iraq and one of the four host countries of the Asian Cup, Thailand, don’t exactly strike fear into their opponents’ hearts.
The only problem is that very little is known about any of these teams and that’s something that Cahill admits to being concerned about.
“When you don’t know anything about the team you’re playing it’s so much harder,” Cahill explains. “We’ll be watching videos of our opponents but basically they’re an unknown quantity and they could have a star player who pops up out of nowhere and does something amazing.
“Graham Arnold and the rest of his team back in Australia are doing their homework and feeding us information on each team and we need to do that. If we stay focused and professional we’ll do well and I’m really excited.”
Only a successful Asian Cup campaign will help erase the memory of an injury-ravaged season with Everton which had started so well for Cahill.
“After the World Cup I was on such a roll and I knew that this was going to be a big season for me,” says Cahill. “I had a flying start, scoring seven goals in 14 matches and what’s annoyed me about the injuries is that they’ve spoiled the run I was on”.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold will be hoping Cahill will pick up in Thailand where he left off at the World Cup in Germany last year. Success in South East Asia in July would provide yet another shot in the arm for Australian football after an impressive World Cup display was followed up by a record-breaking interest in the domestic game for the Hyundai A-League’s second season. Although they may be playing their club football thousands of miles away, Cahill and the other senior Socceroo players understand the responsibilities that come hand in hand with wearing the treasured Green and Gold shirts.
“When you look at the A-League Grand Final and the record attendance they had, you realise that we have a duty to keep pushing the game forward,” says Cahill. “People often look at footballers and see the nice stuff, the big salaries, we drive nice cars, the big houses… so it’s important that they also see the commitment side of things. It’s important for them to know what sacrifices we make – no Christmases, no summer holidays. And the fact that we really want to be a part of the country’s success. Because when the fans see that it really spurs on the public to support the game. I see playing for Australia as a duty and that’s the same with all the lads.”
The Asian Cup will make for something of a re-union for the Socceroos. There have been qualifying matches and friendly internationals in the past 10 months, but they’ve been fleeting affairs. Fly in, train, play, fly out. There’s also been the occasional lunch and dinner when their Premiership schedules have allowed and a constant flow of text messages and phone calls between the players.
But Cahill is hoping that an extended run in the Asian Cup will re-create the team spirit which he believes drove them on to the success they enjoyed in Germany.
“We try and stay in contact during the season but it’s difficult,” he says. “In Germany it was different. We had our family and friends out there but we hardly saw them. In fact we met up with them twice, while the rest of the time we were with the team training like robots. If we weren’t training we were playing table tennis, table football, that kind of thing. We spent a lot of time together and we loved it, the banter was great and that really contributed to the team spirit. It will be great to meet up with the boys again.”
This season’s injuries may have stopped Cahill in his tracks, but the past 10 months haven’t been completely lacking in landmarks and achievements. In December, Cahill was voted by European journalists onto the list of top 50 players for France Football magazine’s Balon D’Or nominations. Real Madrid and Italy defender Fabio Cannavaro was the overall winner but Cahill was the only player on the short list from the Asian Confederation and the first Everton player to be nominated in 18 years.
“That was great for me,” says Cahill with a modest smile. “As a player I just try and play to the best of my ability, but to get recognition like that is the best it can get for me because I’ve worked so hard. Playing for a club like Everton you don’t always think you’re going to get noticed as much, so to be put in amongst the top 50 players in the world is a moment to cherish. It’s all down to the club I play for, my team-mates and my family.”
But Tim Cahill also owes a huge debt of gratitude to his body. The only time he’s stopped playing football in the past three years is when he’s been injured and those periods have offered him little time for rest. His season for Everton may be over, but there is plenty of hard work ahead of him if he’s to get fit in time for the Asian Cup.
Tim Cahill’s body has had a tough few months… better make that a tough few years.
His nickname among the Everton faithful may be “Tiny Tim”, but he’s been making Herculean efforts for both club and country over the last few seasons.
Three years of unbroken football have finally come to an end due to two injuries which have ruined what was shaping up as another great campaign for Everton’s Australian midfielder.
The hope now is that his body can produce even more heroics and recover from a broken foot in time to play for the Socceroos in their first ever Asian Cup adventure this winter. Cahill broke the fifth metatarsal in his left foot in the Toffees’ 1-1 draw against Sheffield United in March.
Cahill is expected to be in the Socceroos starting line-up in Thailand against Oman on July 8 and if anything, after his injury lay-off, he’ll be fresh and raring to go. Not that he’s been lying back and putting his feet up in the mean time just because he can’t play.
“Everyone thinks that when footballers get injured they’re just sitting around waiting for the injury to get better,” says the 27-year-old. “When I did my medial ligament back in November I had about 10 days rest and thought I’d get even longer than that.
“But as it turned out I was in at the training ground three times a day – morning, noon and night, working hard trying to get the strength and power back in it. It was at a stage where I would have needed surgery if it didn’t work out, so I wasn’t resting at all.
“It tends to be like that with all injuries,” Cahill adds. “You need to keep the muscles strong and keep a certain level of fitness otherwise it will take even longer for you to come back.”
Having said that, surely taking away the routine of two matches a week and training with his team-mates must have given him a different perspective on
the game?
“I was working hard at the gym but when you’re not away at the weekends playing games it gave me a chance to look at football from the outside which was different. I got to see a lot of my family which was nice. There isn’t a day goes by when my two boys don’t cry for Daddy when I leave to go and play
or train, so to spend more time at home was great.”
Not that Cahill would complain about the full-time rigours of life as
a Premiership footballer or the responsibilities of being one of the senior member of the Socceroos. Few footballers have played as much football in the past three years as the Everton midfielder, but for him it’s always a pleasure, and never a chore.
“When I was growing up all I wanted to do was play football in England and play for Australia,” he says. “In the last three years I’ve represented my country at the Olympics, the Confederations Cup and the World Cup while I’ve been playing regularly for a great club in the Premiership.
“That’s the platform I’ve always wanted to be on, it’s what I’ve always strived to do. It sometimes takes a lot out of you but I feel I’ve got a duty to perform to the best of my ability every time I play,” Cahill says with determination. “It’s a big responsibility but I wouldn’t be doing myself justice and it wouldn’t be right on the fans if I didn’t give 100 percent every time I stepped onto the pitch.”
A Socceroo based in Europe has more demands placed on him than perhaps any other international player because of the extreme distances they are asked to travel. Australia’s admission into the Asian Football Confederation has exerted even more pressure on the minds and bodies of Socceroos players.
Since joining Asia, the Socceroos have played more meaningful matches, and as Australia’s recent 2-0 win against China showed, Football Federation Australia’s aim is to pick the best eleven players available at the time, giving Socceroos coach Graham Arnold a better opportunity to properly assess his European-based players wearing the Green and Gold. This selection policy is bound to further stir up the ever-fiery club versus country debate which inevitably rears its ugly head before international matches and tournaments.
It’s safe to assume Cahill’s manager at Everton, David Moyes – who has lost his star player’s services for the remainder of the English season – is less than happy about the scheduling of the Asian Cup. In a year where there is no World Cup or European Championship, July is usually the time for Premiership players to take a time-out, get away from the pressures of top-flight football and rest those weary limbs.
Assuming he’s fit in time, Cahill is looking forward to the new challenge, although he remains diplomatic about the club versus country debate.
“From a travel point of view it’s definitely a disadvantage joining the Asian Confederation,” admits Cahill. “We’ve got such a tight schedule with our club and now we’re being asked to play in places like Bahrain, Kuwait, South-East Asia and Australia, with some of the games being mid-week. It’s tough and David Moyes’ first interest is for Everton Football Club and that’s mine as well.
“But being a footballer,” Cahill continues, “if I’m playing for my country, that can only make me more of an asset to Everton and hopefully people appreciate and understand that playing for my country is one of the biggest things for me. It’s all about common sense and if I’m not 100 percent right for a match I won’t play. I think I’ve proved to the gaffer [David Moyes] that I can go away and I can come back and still be on top of my game”.
Indeed, in September, Cahill turned out for Everton against Middlesbrough only three days after playing for Australia against Bahrain in Sydney and less than 24 hours after landing back in the UK. Remarkably, Cahill started the Boro match and scored in a 2-1 defeat.
Cahill is fast becoming an expert on time zones and jet-lag and his next big trip will see him board the plane to Bangkok for the Socceroos’ Asian Cup debut, when they take on Oman on July 8.
After a successful World Cup, Australia is one of the early favourites to win the Asian Cup. Cahill however, despite a comfortable qualifying stage which saw Australia finish top of a group that included Bahrain and Kuwait, isn’t getting carried away. “We’re under a lot of pressure,” says the midfielder, who knows a bit about Asian opposition after putting two stunning goals past Japan in the World Cup.
“The biggest thing that people need to understand and be educated about is that there are a lot of Asian countries that have a good pedigree,” says Cahill. “Look at South Korea when Guus Hiddink was in charge of them. Japan and China are also good sides and we’ve got a lot of respect for them.
“Asian sides are usually very technical. When we played Bahrain in Sydney they were very good technically and were very difficult to break down. We won the match but it wasn’t easy and they gave us a few problems,” he admits. “It’s going to be really tough – we can definitely win the competition but only if we take the competition seriously.”
The group stage sounds easy enough: Oman, Iraq and one of the four host countries of the Asian Cup, Thailand, don’t exactly strike fear into their opponents’ hearts.
The only problem is that very little is known about any of these teams and that’s something that Cahill admits to being concerned about.
“When you don’t know anything about the team you’re playing it’s so much harder,” Cahill explains. “We’ll be watching videos of our opponents but basically they’re an unknown quantity and they could have a star player who pops up out of nowhere and does something amazing.
“Graham Arnold and the rest of his team back in Australia are doing their homework and feeding us information on each team and we need to do that. If we stay focused and professional we’ll do well and I’m really excited.”
Only a successful Asian Cup campaign will help erase the memory of an injury-ravaged season with Everton which had started so well for Cahill.
“After the World Cup I was on such a roll and I knew that this was going to be a big season for me,” says Cahill. “I had a flying start, scoring seven goals in 14 matches and what’s annoyed me about the injuries is that they’ve spoiled the run I was on”.
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold will be hoping Cahill will pick up in Thailand where he left off at the World Cup in Germany last year. Success in South East Asia in July would provide yet another shot in the arm for Australian football after an impressive World Cup display was followed up by a record-breaking interest in the domestic game for the Hyundai A-League’s second season. Although they may be playing their club football thousands of miles away, Cahill and the other senior Socceroo players understand the responsibilities that come hand in hand with wearing the treasured Green and Gold shirts.
“When you look at the A-League Grand Final and the record attendance they had, you realise that we have a duty to keep pushing the game forward,” says Cahill. “People often look at footballers and see the nice stuff, the big salaries, we drive nice cars, the big houses… so it’s important that they also see the commitment side of things. It’s important for them to know what sacrifices we make – no Christmases, no summer holidays. And the fact that we really want to be a part of the country’s success. Because when the fans see that it really spurs on the public to support the game. I see playing for Australia as a duty and that’s the same with all the lads.”
The Asian Cup will make for something of a re-union for the Socceroos. There have been qualifying matches and friendly internationals in the past 10 months, but they’ve been fleeting affairs. Fly in, train, play, fly out. There’s also been the occasional lunch and dinner when their Premiership schedules have allowed and a constant flow of text messages and phone calls between the players.
But Cahill is hoping that an extended run in the Asian Cup will re-create the team spirit which he believes drove them on to the success they enjoyed in Germany.
“We try and stay in contact during the season but it’s difficult,” he says. “In Germany it was different. We had our family and friends out there but we hardly saw them. In fact we met up with them twice, while the rest of the time we were with the team training like robots. If we weren’t training we were playing table tennis, table football, that kind of thing. We spent a lot of time together and we loved it, the banter was great and that really contributed to the team spirit. It will be great to meet up with the boys again.”
This season’s injuries may have stopped Cahill in his tracks, but the past 10 months haven’t been completely lacking in landmarks and achievements. In December, Cahill was voted by European journalists onto the list of top 50 players for France Football magazine’s Balon D’Or nominations. Real Madrid and Italy defender Fabio Cannavaro was the overall winner but Cahill was the only player on the short list from the Asian Confederation and the first Everton player to be nominated in 18 years.
“That was great for me,” says Cahill with a modest smile. “As a player I just try and play to the best of my ability, but to get recognition like that is the best it can get for me because I’ve worked so hard. Playing for a club like Everton you don’t always think you’re going to get noticed as much, so to be put in amongst the top 50 players in the world is a moment to cherish. It’s all down to the club I play for, my team-mates and my family.”
But Tim Cahill also owes a huge debt of gratitude to his body. The only time he’s stopped playing football in the past three years is when he’s been injured and those periods have offered him little time for rest. His season for Everton may be over, but there is plenty of hard work ahead of him if he’s to get fit in time for the Asian Cup.
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