LACK OF STRIKER POWER FIGHTING FOR SPOT
What did you make of Australia’s World Cup performance and who were your outstanding players for the Socceroos?
ATo be honest we played quite well. We played quite a lot of good football but when we get to that final third and somehow it won’t go in the back of the net. Everyone can see it, we don’t have an out and out striker. Once we get there our players aren’t in the right positions. We do play beautiful football coming up to the final third. We did well in general play. But at the moment we don’t have that striker coming through, I thought when Tim Cahill came on, he was creating stuff. We are slowly getting there, look at our performance against France. Any team that comes up against Socceroos I think we can get a point out of it. Andrew Nabbout worked hard. And one player I look up to is Mathew Leckie (right) … we have some similarities I guess. He is quite fast, I wouldn’t say he has outstanding skills, but he is very direct and l look up to him in that I have a bit of speed, and I can be direct, take on a player, put in a cross. Obviously, Daniel Arzani is a year or so younger than me. The way he takes risks, taking on players, he doesn’t care if he takes on a player and loses the ball, he will keep on doing it. Eventually he will create something and it will pay off. He’s probably one of our most exciting prospects for the Socceroos.
Q AI didn’t want to just live off my football money. I wanted to experience the working life abroad as well. I worked at Bicester Village in Oxford, it is basically a designer outlet store with Gucci and that sort of stuff. Basically a massive retail outdoor shopping centre. I had a rare job that not many people would know. I basically would carry everyone’s shopping. It is called hands-free shopping. People go into the store, buy their stuff and leave it there and then I would go around to all the stores and collect the shopping to a pick-up point. It sounds quite easy, however there a lot of rich people who go shopping there and they buy quite a lot of stuff. The village I think is 1.5 miles long, so I could be walking up and down and up down. I quite enjoyed it, I got to see quite a few football stars.
Did you find that your teammates were initially supportive of you joining them, or was there some angst having an Aussie in their ranks?
AHow do you support yourself there? Do you have a job?
That is one difference. Football to them is sometimes their full-time job. Some of my mates would not work and rely on their football wage. So obviously if you are not playing you only get say half the wage. So for them they want to be starting every week, football is everything to them. That’s the difference … all of us trying to fight for that shirt. But in saying that they do like having an Aussie guy. You get plenty of stick about the way you speak, but they are very supportive.