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It's not the end for Lucas Neill

11th May, 2016
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Former Australia captain Lucas Neill during a Socceroos training session. (AAP Image/Dan Peled)
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11th May, 2016
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When you think about Lucas Neill in action, you think of a player always ready to make a challenge, lead from the front and bring the ball out of defence. As captains go, he was a heart-on-the-sleeve lead-by-example kinds guy who meets a challenge head on.

He is a major figure in Australian and Asian football history and the recent news of Neill’s bankruptcy was sad to hear.

Worse were comments from Robbie Slater who said he saw his fellow former Socceroo out and about in Sydney but that Neill blanked him.

It could be that Slater’s criticism of the defender in the latter stages of his international career played a part. Preferring not to talk to high-profile media commentators like Slater and Mark Bosnich does not necessarily mean that Neill has gone Garbo.

Yet there have been rumours for a while and perhaps Sydney Morning Herald’s headline of a ‘bankrupt recluse’ wasn’t completely over-the-top.

When meeting and talking to the player over the years, he was always thoughtful, opinionated and articulate – traits that not all appreciate in a football player.

Neill has long divided opinion.

In November 2012, I was at Hwaseong Stadium to witness history in the making – a Robbie Cornthwaite winner for the Socceroos against South Korea.

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It was a game with most of the big names on both teams not making the long trip to the middle of the Korean countryside on a freezing night.

Lucas Neill was there though. I wondered why.

Coaching staff said it was because he was the captain and wanted to represent his country everywhere it played, anywhere it played.

Journalists said it was because he was worried about losing his place to a younger rival if he didn’t play.

As a Blackburn Rovers fan, he may not have been the most talented player to wear the famous blue and white halves but he was a great, committed and passionate servant for almost six seasons.

That’ s a lengthy spell and it was natural that he wanted to move on. Some supporters, I believe to be a minority but it’s hard to know for sure, gave him a hard time when he left. It was unfair and shows how fickle and hypocritical fans can be.

Blackburn followers are used to their best players heading onto bigger stages. Supporters always said that the stars should just be honest when they leave and not –like Craig Bellamy at around the same time –deny they are leaving until just before they actually leave.

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Neill actually did what fans say they want players to do. He was honest. A year before the end of his contract, he announced that he was not going to sign a new one and proceeded to give his best until he finally departed. Some supporters didn’t like it.

The defender also made the cardinal error of turning down Liverpool to join West Ham United for more money – or at least that is what the tabloids said and the simplistic mercenary narrative stuck in England and Australia.

At home though, the criticism went further. Some said he felt entitled to a national team spot. Perhaps but on the occasions that I interviewed him, it was clear that here was a professional who wanted to play for Australia as long as possible. There’s nothing wrong with that.

It was sad that he was jeered at a Socceroo game in Sydney. For someone who had given so much to the national team, it must have been deeply hurtful. It wasn’t deserved. Whether he was still good enough to play or not was not his decision, but he was always desperate to represent his country.

I remember seeing him at Saitama Stadium in June 2013, immense in defence as Australia were moments away from picking up the most famous of wins against Japan in a huge qualification match for the 2018 World Cup. At that point, he looked set for Brazil. It didn’t happen and his international career was over and that must have been a major blow.

Time and time again, he bounced back from mistakes and bad times on the pitch to prove his worth. To paraphrase a popular saying in the north of England, ‘Lucas Neill has never been backward in coming forward’. Hopefully, it will ring true once more.

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