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A report in the Sydney Morning Herald tells of Football Federation Australia’s difficulty in finding an Australian marquee spot for Tim Cahill ahead of next season’s A-League. To me, this is absolutely mind-boggling.
I don’t know what is being asked from the Cahill side of the negotiating table but the way things stand at the moment, money aside, he is a perfect fit for one club – Sydney FC. But according to the SMH report, Sky Blues chairman Scott Barlow and coach Graeme Arnold “mutually agreed they would rather pursue other options for their Australian marquee slot…”
Really? And just what “other options” might there be for a club that couldn’t win a goal in a raffle if they bought all the tickets last season? Bear in mind that the Australian marquee slot has been vacated by Alex Brosque, a talented, albeit frequently injured striker for which the sobriquet “marquee” fits a little like a hair coat.
I suppose that depends on what you imagine a marquee to be but in my imagination, no-one fits the bill currently better than Tim Cahill.
In any marquee checklist for a team that badly needs a goal scorer, Cahill ticks all the boxes. A Sky-Blue “Cahill” shirt will sell like hot cakes. The man himself is a Marrickville Red Devils junior, a hefty stone’s throw from Sydney FC headquarters at Moore Park.
He is by far the most popular Australian footballer currently plying his trade. He is still in wonderful shape, still scoring regularly at all levels of the game. Outwardly, he has never shown any hint of being a “problem” star for coaches.
He is as committed and passionate about the game and the national team as he was a decade ago when he came off the bench in Kaiserslautern and sent the nation’s emotions into the stratosphere with two goals in two minutes against Japan when all seemed lost. There is no downside to the sentence ‘Tim Cahill, Australian Marquee for Sydney FC.’ Yet Barlow and Arnold are “pursuing other options.”
Sydney FC fans deserve to know just what these “options” might be, because I’m flat-out trying to think of a better option than the one that is staring them in the face. Does this feed into the oft-rumoured problem that Arnold has dealing with so-called “star” players? Is the memory of his coaching meltdown at the 2007 Asian Cup still fresh enough to not want to entertain the notion of bringing in the last remaining member of the Golden Generation still taking to the pitch?
Frankly, I don’t buy into those theories, as Arnold has proved his coaching credentials over the past decade. He has dealt with top names, emerging talent, players whose stock appeared on the wane, and he has, with the exception of the most recent season, always got results.
So if it’s not Arnold’s reluctance to deal with a “star”, what is stopping Sydney FC? The club could be looking at a marquee signing to rival the incredible success of Alessandro Del Piero.
Cahill will bring fans to matches, there is no doubt about that. He will score goals. He will sell shirts. He will give every ounce of his fibre to the cause, as he has everywhere he has played.
He will fit nicely into a 4-4-2, a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 system, as he has with the National team. And he’s a local. What currently available Australian player can do all this?
Barlow and Arnold would be best advised to lay their cards on the table, because Sydney FC fans will be getting restless about what is to come. Or not, if the Cahill story is to be believed.
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