Mark Schwarzer

The most intriguing aspect of looking back at our Asian Cup squad is how few caps our Socceroos had earned, despite how old they were. Mark Schwarzer was 34-years-old in 2007, but only had 46 caps.

This means that Schwarzer earned 63 caps between the ages of 34 and 40, which must be some sort of record. But back to the football.

After Schwarzy lost the first penalty shootout of his entire career against Japan, signalling Australia’s exit at the quarterfinal stage, he would play on for an awe-inspiring nine more years, eventually retiring at the ripe old age of 43.

In addition to setting records for the most Premier League appearances for a foreigner, and the only player to win back-to-back league titles with different clubs, Schwarzer published his own range of children’s books, and currently serves as a pundit for Optus Sport.

Lucas Neill

Does anyone actually know what’s happened to Lucas Neill? His career post-Asian Cup in many ways mirrors his performances during the tournament. He got a red card that lost us the match against Iraq and missed a penalty that lost us the quarter final against Japan, yet was still solid enough that he made the AFC Team of the Tournament. You just don’t get that with other captains.

Neill would go on to make another 59 appearances for the Socceroos following the Asian Cup, most of them as skipper. But things deteriorated quickly for Neill in the final two years of his career. Publicly berated for his lack of pace, Neill blamed younger Socceroos for their lack of commitment to the cause, before turning on the fans themselves.

There was no coming back from there. Neill never really retired, instead he slowly faded from relevance in a devastatingly sad end to a phenomenal career. He voided ties with Australian football and allegedly went bankrupt due to a series of high-risk investments.

Little has been written about Neill in the last year. But it’s worth remembering the defensive pillar the Socceroos were once lucky enough to possess, one that we perhaps should have realised was more fragile than we thought.