By Richard Cann

Congratulations on your first Socceroos cap. Did you ever feel like a Socceroos call-up wasn’t going to happen for you?
For quite a while, yeah. I’m 28 now, so for quite a while I almost didn’t think about it. I thought I’d probably missed it now. So, it’s fantastic to get a call-up.

What do you think has made the difference? Was it coming back to Australia?
Yeah, probably. The success of the Melbourne Victory has helped me and I had a good season last year. So all those things have helped probably. Being in Australia, I’m more in the eye of the selectors.

Did you hear much from the Socceroos management and selectors while in the UK?
Not really, not since I was at Manchester City, when I was closer probably but in my mid-20s I thought I’d been forgotten about… well, not forgotten about, but I didn’t think it would happen. I didn’t hear much from selectors personally while I was over there, but that’s just me. I was on stand-by once, and I was in the U23s so I had a bit of contact then. And then nothing.

Was that frustrating?
I was concentrating on doing well for my club at the time. But I just thought, there were good players in front of me like Viduka, and the team was doing well.

What made you head back to Australia?
I felt like I just needed a new direction and needed to give career a new challenge and I wanted to come back to Australia. I spoke to Ernie Merrick who I had as a youth coach, and straight away thought that’s what I want to do. I’ve had a good relationship with him and enjoy my football with him.

So it’s good to be back in Melbourne?
Yeah. I’m from the Ranges. It’s beautiful up there. There’s a lot of good shops up there. I’ve got two boys and they’re happy in Melbourne. Our family’s around. My oldest boy was actually born in England and doesn’t have an Australian passport. But I’ve really enjoyed myself with Melbourne Victory.

How have you been keeping in shape?
At Victory, we’ve been doing pre-season for quite a while now. We had a break after the Grand Final then got back into. We just haven’t had any competitive matches.

How are you feeling on the eve of a possible debut?
I don’t really know what to expect. But I don’t want to be here just to make up the numbers.

How does the pressure of being in the Socceroos squad compare to the pressure of going on Sale of the Century?
That was a different sort of pressure. You basically don’t want to make a fool of yourself on national television. It was good fun to have that experience. I messed up one question – I more or less took a guess and think I said it was a girl when the answer was a bloke.

But you won your night, didn’t you?
Yeah. I think I came second overall out of the sports people.

What do you think of Merrick’s changes to the squad for next season?
We’ve lost a few more players than what we’ve got in at the moment. But the couple of players that we have brought in are very good. We’re building. We’ll have more signings.

So is Kevin Muscat a pretty intense leader?
He gets the raw end of it in terms of people’s perceptions of him. I’m probably one of the guys who had that perception of him [as being aggressive] before I knew him properly. He’s a great guy. He really drives our team and he’s the leader of the team.