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At the start of the 2023/24 A-League season, I was asked to select a Golden Boot winner. Adam Taggart was my choice and remains so as the competition enters its final third.
There is something about the now 30-year-old Taggart that has always pulled an emotional nerve inside me. Many a comment on articles I’ve written over the years have suggested that there could well be something of a ‘bromance’ occurring between the two of us.
However, I can safely say that Adam and I are not friends, let alone anything more.
In fact, it would be more accurate to describe the situation as one man admiring another from afar and wondering why other people cannot see the same qualities that he does.
My admiration of the Perth-born striker is based simply on two core ideas. Firstly, in the vast majority of cases, wherever he has ventured in his football travels, he scores.
Adam Taggart celebrates a goal for Perth Glory. (Photo by James Worsfold/Getty Images)
Secondly, I’m not sure he has ever been given the chances he deserved in Socceroo colours.
Jamie Maclaren is probably thinking similar things after his selection snub from Graham Arnold in the leadup to the recent Asian Cup in Qatar. Perhaps there is a similarity in their stories.
Yet in my view, Taggart is more the traditional number nine who slots and poaches in a more clinical manner than Maclaren and who who went abroad and proved his worth in the challenging and torrid K-League.
Maclaren has a clear ability to run off the shoulders of defenders and capitalise on the motion created by his attacking midfielders. Yet to me, Taggart is more of a stand and deliver player, capable of the touches of class by foot they we rarely see in Australian strikers, a quality behind the man selected in place of Maclaren in Qatar, Bruno Fornaroli.
As controversial as the selection of a newly eligible and 36-year-old Uruguayan was for the disappointed Maclaren it would have been just as shattering for Taggart, whilst being far less reported in media circles at the time.
With 12 goals for the Glory this season Taggart’s grand total for the club now stands at 36 across 75 matches, dating as far back as 2010/11 when he was an exciting raw talent.
In between, a stint in Newcastle brought an A-League Golden Boot his way, with 16 goals scored in 2014 and a move overseas was eventually secured.
After some fits and starts abroad, a return to Perth then a successful period in Brisbane with eleven goals in 18 games, the K-League called. 29 goals across 56 matches proved the Aussie was good for at least a goal every other game.
Less success was to be found in Japan at Osaka, yet a second return to Perth has seen the classy co-captain slip right back in to goal scoring form in Alen Stajcic’s rebuilding squad.
Internationally, the goals flowed at under 20’s level (7) and despite lesser success with the Olyroos, Taggart found the net six times for the Socceroos after being initially thrust into the team at an extremely young age.
Adam Taggart was with the Socceroos as recently as 2021. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
Taggart was just 21 at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and played against both the Netherlands and Spain.
Ange Postecoglou obviously had faith and hope in the man as talented as any other Australian in front of goal, yet opportunities have been few and far between under different Socceroo managers.
No better work could Alen Stajcic do for the national team than provide the platform to build Taggart’s season goal tally to a point where he is difficult to leave out of the qualifiers looming for the Socceroos.
A duo of matches against an improving and dangerous Lebanese team will require attention to detail and a mindset of determination Taggart is displaying on a week to week basis for Perth.
His desperation and commitment in the dying moments against Brisbane Roar in the Glory’s 3-2 win on Saturday night was nothing short of inspirational for both the crowd and his team mates – almost as much so as his two goals earlier in the contest.
Maturity appears to be letting loose a new Adam Taggart and perhaps it’s the best version of him domestic fans have ever witnessed.
I still scratch my head and wonder why the Perth talisman remains on the international outer. I believe he is the best Australian I’ve seen in front of goal by foot since Mark Viduka and Harry Kewell.
Perhaps only weight of goals might see him get the chance he deserves back in national colours. Based on current form, he must surely be in the conversation.