Mark Bosnich GoalKeeper photo by Getty Images

Television – is it something that you anticipated you’d be doing?

No ‒ I anticipated I would still be playing now. Unfortunately, that stopped right in the middle. During those years I was off the radar, I didn’t anticipate anything but the next hour. When I came back to Australia, I played for Central Coast for those seven games. During that time, an executive producer at Fox asked me if I would come and work on the Premier League and a Socceroos game. I said I’d love to. Worked on it, asked if I would like to do it full-time. I really didn’t realise until I started commentating how much I actually missed the sport. And the bottom line is, I had the seven games back, I was out six years, and I was never going to play at the level I was used to.

I also realise how much work is entailed. It’s a different kind of pressure. We can talk here like this, but all of a sudden, somebody goes, “Lights, camera, action ... now you’ve got to say this ... ” That’s a different sort of pressure in itself. I never thought I’d face more pressure than going out and playing in front of 50,000 people and not making a mistake. This is the same pressure in a different way.

You can feel it, especially when you talk about something that’s very important. You talk about sanitising and so forth, and when you are on TV and representing your company, you have to be careful with certain things. There are a lot of people out there with different sensitivities, and I’ve learnt that in the past. Like Oscar Wilde says, assume many things, but never assume people have the same sense of humour.

Has being on TV changed your perspective on things? Like when you look at what Mario Balotelli’s done recently, do you have sympathy from being an ex-player, or do you look at the game as a pundit?

That’s a great question. There are times when you fall into the easy way out of destroying something or criticising it. This table would’ve taken weeks to build ‒ we could smash it in one second. Sometimes players do things that do piss you off. It’s really important to remember back to when you were a player, and that some things are not black and white; some are grey. When somebody does something particular, yes, but from my perspective, I’ve got to be careful not to be a hypocrite.

It’s important to think to yourself, “If I was in that position, would I have acted any different?” I’m very fortunate, without trying to sound conceited, that I played and succeeded at the highest level. The fact is, I pretty much stopped at my peak – I didn’t have any down time. I can only go off that ... you never know, the guy may be on the brink of having a divorce, his kid may be ill. So you’ve got to try to put yourself in that position, especially with mistakes off the pitch. On the pitch, there’s an excuse for anything but not trying. I don’t think professional sport is not trying. There are levels of desire, but when you see that, that’s one thing you have to stamp on.