Schwarzer (and Australia) running out of options

If there’s anything more predictable in Australian football than Harry Kewell picking up an injury, it’s Mark Schwarzer saying he wants to leave Middlesbrough.

For over a decade the Socceroos goalkeeper, who had the honour of being included on the Asian Football Confederation’s Player of the Year longlist this week, has been turning out for the Teesiders in the English Premier League, an achievement in itself. But by god he’s had a good whine along the way.

Every few years, when his contract is up for renegotiation, Schwarzer and his agent play the “I’ll move to Bayern Munich” card, and invariably Boro cough up the improved terms he’s asking. But it appears that ruse is up.

Middlesbrough are holding out against entering contract talks with Schwarzer until the EPL season is over, which will leave him out of contract and put the club in a better bargaining position.

Schwarzer could, of course, counter that move with clear evidence of offers from EPL, Bundesliga or Serie A clubs, but that’s what Schwarzer does not have – in the months and months of speculative press about his moving from Boro, not one representative from any of the clubs linked to his signature – Fiorentina, Bayern, Celtic, Juventus – has made any sort of statement that could be accepted as a sign of genuine interest in the player.

Schwarzer’s standoff with Boro, which has been playing out over months, reminds me of David Carney’s flirtation with Bayern Munich, which I wrote about for The Roar a few months ago.

The story was completely beat up by Ben Coles at Fox Sports and came to nothing because there was nothing behind it.

Now Carney can’t even get on the bench for Sheffield United in the English Championship.

Carney? Champions League? Pfffft.

So the next few weeks are going to be very interesting to watch with Schwarzer, as they will be for the Socceroos’ other out-of-contract star, Kewell.

Going into June, the most important month for Australian football since the 2006 World Cup two years ago, we could have a No. 1 and No. 10 without clubs.

The picture isn’t that much better for their Socceroos team-mates.

Tim Cahill is crocked, Lucas Neill could be offloaded by West Ham, Nicky Carle is out of favour at Bristol City, Michael Beauchamp can’t get a start for FC Nürnberg, Carl Valeri could drop down next season to Serie C1 with Grosseto.

Only Scott McDonald has had a breakout season among the legion of Australian players in Britain, with strike partner Josh Kennedy rediscovering his mojo in Germany, Brett Holman, Luke Wilkshire and Jason Culina quietly holding the fort in Holland and the now-retired Zeljko Kalac having a career renaissance in Italy.

With Schwarzer’s future under something of a cloud, and the lack of challengers to his position in the national team, Pim Verbeek must be having some concerns about his options going into the next round of World Cup qualifiers.

One of Guus Hiddink’s braver ploys during the World Cup was to have Schwarzer and Kalac fight for the No. 1 jersey. Whether it backfired in the Croatia match with the Kalac gaffe is a subject for football historians, but there’s no doubt it pushed Schwarzer hard and tested his resolve.

It’s a sign of how low our club stocks have fallen in Europe that an out-of-contract and possibly unemployed 35-year-old goalkeeper with such a history of erratic form will have so much riding on his shoulders come June.

Let’s pray he’s on his game.

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