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Tim Cahill the greatest Socceroo

Roar Pro
21st June, 2014
2

Tim Cahill scored one of the great goals in Australian football history against the Netherlands at the 2014 World Cup.

While the Socceroos would go on to lose 3-2 and be eliminated from advancing past the group stages, Cahill pushed his name further forward in the conversation regarding the greatest player this country has produced.

The argument for Tim Cahill being Australia’s greatest footballer can be broken down into two categories, club level and international level.

While many will argue that Harry Kewell is the best product to leave these shores – and rightly so – Cahill sits at the top of the tree alongside the likes of Kewell and Mark Viduka.

Cahill has always been a big stage player when it comes to Australian football, we can all remember the dramatic scenes at the 2006 World Cup after Cahill turned the Japan game on its head in Kaiserslautern.

Not the most naturally gifted Australian player, Cahill has been able to perform at the highest level better than anyone on the national stage, becoming the nation’s greatest goal scorer in the process.

At club level, Cahill never played for the elite big clubs in Europe, spending his entire career at English clubs Millwall and Everton, his status as Australia’s greatest is hampered by this fact.

Cahill’s career has been one of sheer determination, pushing his body to the limits and exhausting every ounce of talent he can to reach the heights of World Cup football.

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With so much focus on his World Cup triumphs and goals, lost is the Cahill clubman, which survived him well for eight years in the English Premier League. Cahill has always been a big time, clutch footballer at both national and club level.

Milwall fans will remember the match-winner against Sunderland in an FA Cup semi-final clash in 2000/01, for Everton fans it’s the constant Merseyside derby goals against Liverpool. It’s this club level form that had Cahill nominated for the Ballon D’Or in 2006.

But it’s his exploits during the recent World Cup that has elevated him to legendary status and recognised by many as the greatest Australian footballer ever.

There is no argument that Cahill is not technically our greatest footballer, which makes his feats at national team level even more impressive.

He sits head and shoulders above his nearest peer when wearing the green and gold, and a left foot strike against the Netherlands that stopped a nation, puts Cahill into a realm of his own.

A realm that might see him finish a career as not only the greatest Socceroo, but the greatest player we have produced.

Wherever Tim Cahill sits in Australian football, he will leave behind a legacy that will be hard to match. Heart the size of Phar Lap and passion unmatched from any footballer to don the Australian kit.

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With Cahill announcing the Asian Cup as a possible last hurrah, it’s only fitting that we get to send off the greatest Socceroo this country has produced on home soil.

I will be standing and applauding come January 9, 2015.

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