One of the greats of Australian football, Josip Skoko, will be farwelled from professional football this weekend. The 35-year-old is battling a knee injury and will hopefully appear for the Melbourne Heart against Sydney FC at AAMI Park this Saturday in his final game.
Skoko has been one of the best but most unheralded Australian players of his generation. Immensely talented, the midfielder has found success throughout his career.
He had four years at Croatian club Hadjuk Spilt from 1995-99, making 97 appearances and scoring 20 goals, before a move to Belgium with Genk. It was there, in 2002, that he captained Genk to the Belgian championship before making the switch to Turkey for two seasons at Genclerbirligi, where he was part of a successful UEFA Cup run.
It was in 2005 that he joined Wigan Athletic in England, spending 2006 on loan at Stoke. Despite having trouble breaking into the starting line-up at Wigan in the beginning, he would eventually play 45 matches for the club.
In 2008 he returned to his former club Hadjuk Spilt, where he spent two more years, before returning to Australia in 2010 to play in the Heart’s debut season.
Skoko has largely flown under the radar during his career, never seeking attention and quietly going about his business.
Perhaps, partly because most of his time was spent in European leagues that don’t get much coverage in Australia – Croatia, Belgium, Turkey – he never got the column inches some of his golden generation Socceroo teammates like Harry Kewell, John Aloisi and his good friend Mark Viduka did.
But Skoko was just as successful and just as talented as they were, and was always highly regarded by his teammates. A creative player with great technique and a good football brain, Skoko was an asset in any team he played in.
He was graduate of Ron Smith at the AIS in 1993, was a Young Socceroo and played for the Olyroos at the Sydney Olympics. All up he played 51 matches for the Socceroos and scored nine goals, which is no mean feat.
That puts him among the top 20 players who have played the most games for Australia. He was a key part of Guus Hiddink’s famous World Cup qualifying team, appearing in the history-making win against Uruguay, and scored some great goals during his career as well.
The cracker against Greece at the MCG in 2006 immediately comes to mind.
Apparently he is only a 50-50 chance of being fit for the game this Saturday.
Let’s hope he gets to play and gets a resounding send off. He has been a class act in the A-League this season, a very canny acquisition by the Heart.
Always a faithful servant of Australian football, someone who has experienced both the bad and good times in the sport, Skoko deserves our respect and our thanks.
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