Jason Culina: My life is football

More recently, the skilled midfielder won plaudits for returning to the park after a two-year battle with knee injury, only to see a bust up with coach Frank Farina, four months into a deal with Sydney FC, bring the curtain down on a remarkable comeback.

One of the so-called Golden Generation, Culina announced he was hanging up his boots during an FFA function at ANZ Stadium where, in 2005, he helped the Socceroos return to the world stage after an absence of more than three decades.

This week he spoke with au.fourfourtwo.com about his extraordinary journey, career-changing relationship with Socceroos and PSV Eindhoven mentor, Guus Hiddink, following in the footsteps of his coach father, Branko, and why after 17 years of triumphs and travails he has no regrets.

You announced your retirement at ANZ Stadium before the Socceroos 1-0 defeat of Iraq which qualified Australia for another World Cup. Was there some significance in the timing?
Not at all – it was just off the cuff. It’s been at the back of my mind for the last few months. Obviously I’d spoken with my family about it and sought their opinions, but ultimately it was up to me if I wanted to continue playing or focus on something else. And I was sitting there at the stadium, doing a Q and A in front of all the corporates and sponsors and God knows who, when Brett Emerton was asked about next season and I knew the question was coming my way. I just basically said my time was up.

And the morning after your public announcement?
It was a relief in some ways. I think it made it easier not having played for three to four months prior to that. Had I played my last game the week before and then announced it I would have been so much more emotional. You know, what on earth have I bloody done? But I’d had time to think about it over a lengthy period. It wasn’t such a shock to the system.

Any regrets about watching from the sidelines as the Socceroos qualified for Brazil 2014?
Not at all. When you contemplate retirement you look back at all of your achievements, what things didn’t go too well and what things you could have done differently. Even though I went through some really difficult periods for club and country, I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. I look back knowing that I’ve achieved things that most other Aussie players haven’t. I’ve played in two World Cups, and it’s only myself and Lucas Neill who’ve played every minute of every one of those games.  I used to watch Champions League on TV and I ended up playing 25 Champions League games. All these things just started flooding into my head while I was watching the Socceroos and I sort of smiled and thought, you know, I’ve had a great time.

Did you feel as if the decision was out of your hands?
In a way, yes. I could have continued to play and struggled on a little bit and not played to my full potential and got frustrated with myself. Or I could say – it’s time to call it a day. For me, the most important thing was to come back from the injury that I had because a lot of people had written me off.  When I did finally play, it wasn’t because people felt sorry for me, it was because I played well and really helped the team. I started five games for Sydney FC and I scored two goals and gave three assists. I wasn’t just a passenger. That’s all my aim was. To finish on that note, I was pretty satisfied.

After a two-year battle with injury your return to football lasted just four months. Was it hard to make sense of that effort?
It wasn’t because at the end of the day I knew what I wanted for myself. It just so happens that things didn’t go all that well with Sydney – that’s on a professional basis – because I expect so much from myself and people around me. It’s not easy coming back from an injury like I had. That was considered one of the worst injuries you could have as a sportsman and it was mentally and physically taxing on me. To then have to deal with things on top of that didn’t make my job very easy. Had people understood my position a little bit better, where I was with my body and mentally at the time, we probably could have pushed through that but, you know. It’s not the way I wanted things to end up but that’s life, that’s football. I look at that as a positive as well because it ultimately helped me make up my mind whether I was going to play on or not.

You've had such a successful career, is it possible to name a highlight?
I think there are two big highlights. You can’t go past that World Cup qualifying and whole World Cup campaign back in 2005 and 2006. For me that was phenomenal based on everything that led up to it. We hadn’t qualified for so many years and we were a young bunch of players who (Socceroos coach) Guus Hiddink had put together, combined with a few older experienced guys. It all just gelled, it all just worked for us, and we all felt that it was going to work. And number two, probably winning three Championships in a row with PSV. Nothing replaces winning when you’re an elite sportsperson.

One of the enduring images of the 2006 World Cup was Hiddink comforting you after Australia lost to Italy in those last agonising seconds. Can you still put yourself in that place?
I can because I’ve actually got a poster of that on the back of the door in my house. It’s a special moment for me because, number one, we lost to the eventual (World Cup) winners and we could take something out of that. It just goes to show how good a team we were. And, two, Guus was – apart from my family – probably the one most pivotal person in my football career. When he took me from FC Twente, which were a mid-table club in Holland, to PSV, he showed he believed in me. Under him I really progressed to the next level. And at that very moment, I think he understood how much it meant to me and, obviously, I understood how much it meant to him. He was really passionate about the Socceroos, as was I, and it was just that partnership we had between club and country that all came together in one moment.

Hiddink was responsible for transitioning you from an attacking midfielder to a more defensive role. Was it difficult to stifle those attacking instincts?
It’s not until now, when I look back at watch all those games when I was at FC Twente, that I realise just how attacking I was. It just shows what a good job Guus did. It wasn’t easy. You get used to scoring goals. You get your trip from scoring goals and setting goals up.  Moving back in the team, into a more defensive position, well, you get thrills from doing other things – picking up the ball, starting the play which may lead to a goal. That was a transition that helped me in the Socceroos as well. In the end that’s what people remember me as – a defensive-type controlling midfielder. It was a transition which really helped me throughout my career and one I’m very thankful to Guus for.

Back in 2009, while you were still at the top of your game, you signed for Gold Coast United with the aim of lifting the profile of the A-League. What’s been your legacy?
I’m probably not the best one to answer that question. The reason I came back when I did was because I’d seen what happened to a couple of players who returned in their mid-30s. It hadn’t gone that well for them. When I look back now, it probably didn’t go that well for me after a couple of years as well, but that was due to other reasons.  I do think it kick-started another generation (of Socceroos) coming back like Brett Emerton, Harry Kewell and a few others as well. I would’ve liked to have a bigger impact, not on the field but off the field, but for whatever reason it just didn’t work for Gold Coast. I think it all gets overshadowed, my coming back to Australia when I was 29, because we’re now talking about a defunct club. But had I come back to a Sydney FC or Melbourne or Adelaide or wherever, it might have been different.

You had difficult times at GCU, Newcastle Jets, obviously, and then Sydney FC – was it worth it?
I probably see more negatives than positives in my time at the three clubs. Would I make the same decision again had I known this was all going to happen? Probably not. But I don’t regret decisions I make. I think everything happens in life for a reason and whatever that reason is I’m still looking for it [laughs].  I know it will come to me one day. It wasn’t an easy period for me or the family, probably more so the family because they had to deal with me during that period.

The positives are that I had a good couple of years here in the A-League and the A-League is always improving. We’re able to attract better players now with the likes of – apart from the Aussies – your Del Pieros, Onos and Heskeys. Our next thing should be to attract these sort of quality players at a younger age. Overall, the standard has definitely increased and the overall level of support has increased. It’s looking up. And with the Socceroos making the World Cup I think it’s going to give the A-League another big boost in the arm.

There’s a lot of talk about rejuvenating the national team – what do you think of the young players coming through?
A transition period is always difficult. Everyone is going to compare this current Socceroos team with our generation and I think that’s a little unfair. We grew up in a different environment where we were all playing at the highest levels, in the top countries and in the top clubs. But in saying that, I think we’ve got a good young generation of players which I hope will continue to learn and listen to the senior players in the team, because they’re the ones that are going to make their transition a little easier.

And what about our chances in Brazil?
It’s what the coach and coaching staff does that will influence which way the Socceroos go over the next year leading up to the World Cup. I think we can take some positives out of the way we qualified but we can also look at points where we can improve.  When I talk about our generation of Socceroos, we set our standards very high. We weren’t happy when we had a draw against Holland or we just beat whoever. We were only happy with the win and I think that mentality has to come back into the Socceroos team – not being happy just to scrape past Iraq in the last game. For me they need to look above that, they need to be more positive and back themselves and say, hang-on we need to be beating better teams than this convincingly.

Have you seen the next Jason Culina out there?
[Laughs] I don’t know about that. My son, but he’s only four years old. When I was young I would look at players and try to emulate them. My favourite European players when I was growing up were other midfielders like Zinedine Zidane. I knew I would never be them, but I could always pick up little things. You’re always your own person and own player, but I hope in some small way I’ve inspired a young player to maybe play for the Socceroos.

You started out at Sydney United. Do you ever pinch yourself at just how far your footballing journey has taken you?
Yes and no. I can remember from a very young age people asking me what I wanted to be and the only answer I ever had was to be a professional football player. But I do pinch myself in that I never thought I’d reach the heights of playing in two World Cups or playing in the Champions League. And I do pinch myself when I look back and watch replays of those games and realise who I played with and who I played against. But in terms of becoming a pro footballer and playing in Europe, that was always in me.

You mentioned those you played with and against – who stands out?
A lot of players, and for different reasons. There are players that showed leadership, those that showed skill. There are those who are playing at the highest level who, at some point, I considered myself better than, but who took off and became a lot better. The youth team I was in at Ajax was pretty unbelievable.  We had Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart and Johnny Heitinga who’s at Everton now. There was Thomas Vermaelen, the captain at Arsenal, who I used to drive to training every morning, and Maarten Stekelenburg who just moved from Roma to Fulham to replace Mark Schwarzer. And in my senior years at PSV there was Phillip Cocu who was captain of Barcelona and the Dutch national team. His leadership was unbelievable. And players like Patrick Kluivert who joined us at PSV. To be able to sit alongside these guys towards the end of their careers was pretty special.

What about closer to home?
Growing up watching Mark Viduka play - he was my Aussie idol and I really looked up to him when I was younger. I still remember his first game in the old National Soccer League. I remember it clearly. To later go on and play with him in the national team and in a World Cup was, for me, a dream come true. I’d be on the field and still nervous talking to him because I admired him so much.

Was he a good skipper?
He was. He wasn’t, I don’t think, a natural leader but he was a great guy and a genuine guy. He led by the way he played. He didn’t lead by what he said, but by what he did, and a lot of players appreciated that. I know I did.

So what’s next for Jason Culina?
It would be foolish of me not to stay involved in football. I love it. My kids have just started playing football and you know what, I love coaching kids. I love watching football and I love talking football. So for me my life is football. I talk about it every day with my father and family and the one thing that always pops into my mind is to coach. Dad’s always been the coach in the household and I look back on his coaching career and I’d like to emulate what he did. He was a fantastic coach, and still is, and I’ve learned so much from him. So that’s definitely one thing I would love to do.

   >>>   click here to relive jason's career in pics