Jurman enjoys wild ride to World Cup
IT WAS a fork in the road moment for Australian football — and for Mathew Jurman.
Inside eight months, the former Sydney FC defender has gone from having no caps to every prospect of playing at the World Cup, all thanks to the twists and turns of Australia’s qualifying campaign.
Jurman’s debut came in the first leg of last October’s playoff with Syria, called up at the age of 27 for the first time. Had the Socceroos not made heavy weather of their route to Russia, and had made it directly, there might have been no game in October, and no chance to shine for the Suwong Bluewings centre-half.
“It’s funny how things work out,” Jurman said. “If Australia had qualified automatically, I might never have played for my country.
“I’ll be honest, a year or two ago I didn’t think my dream would come alive. It’s doing something I’ve always wanted to be a part of.
“It’s tough to prepare for a do-ordie game like that playoff, where a country of 20 million people expects you to play well and win, and expects you to do well on your debut … But I felt ready, something I was waiting for my whole life.
“If I was younger I might have been nervous, but in Malaysia for the first game, once Ange [Postecoglou] threw me in the deep end, it panned out pretty well.”
So well that Bert van Marwijk, in his first camp as Postecoglou’s successor in March, talked up Jurman’s importance to the squad, and has taken him to the World Cup.
It is ample reward for Jurman’s decision to quit Sydney FC midseason 18 months ago to seek a new challenge in Korea with Suwon.
“When I first got there, it was hard — I’d never lived in a foreign country, never played abroad,” he said. “To sign and get straight into that cutthroat mentality … if you’re not doing well, they can make it hard for you and get rid of you pretty quickly.
“I knew that, but it was a challenge I was ready for — something outside the A-League.
“I loved life in Sydney and I could see we were going to win something, so I could have easily stayed there.
“I wanted a new challenge, especially one that might help me achieve this ambition. It’s shown me I could cope with situations that you just wouldn’t encounter in Australia.
“A lot of challenges I had to overcome and I’m still there.”