After the big news of Harry Kewell’s retirement rocked the football world this week, fans won’t be able to see him in action and send him off in style till next week.
In what has sadly been a hallmark for the Socceroo during his career, Kewell sat out Melbourne Heart’s match against plate holders Brisbane Roar last night nursing an injury.
The 35-year-old has been fighting with his body for months, if not years, and his spotty appearance record for Melbourne Heart and before that Melbourne Victory showed the professional was struggling to return to his glory days.
Melbourne Heart coach John van’t Schip had nothing but praise to add to the myriad of kind words that flowed this week for the internationally experienced and capped player.
Although he was sidelined for many games this season battling injury, van’t Schip believes Kewell has remained in shape and in a great mindset that should be a lesson for younger players.
“I’m happy that I have worked with him, he was an example for the younger boys that they could see, even at the age he is now, how you really prepare yourself, keep your body in shape,” van’t Schip said.
“If you look at Harry now and look at his body he’s still a real professional and as a player, you have to have a lot of respect for what he did.”
This week, headlines have dubbed Kewell as “Australia’s greatest and most globally recognisable footballer”, becoming a role model to many young Australian players entering the game professionally.
Kewell became the youngest ever Socceroo when he debuted against Chile in 1996, but it was not until November of ’97 that he scored his first goal in the first leg of Australia’s World Cup qualifier against Iran.
He was integral to the team when the Socceroos broke a 32-year drought and qualified for the World Cup in 2006 and once again in 2010.
In 2011 he helped Australia reach the finals of the Asian Cup campaign.
Kewell made his way into the English Premier League after he was spotted by Leeds United manager Howard Wilkinson while on an end-of-year tour of England with the Australian soccer academy in 1995.
It did not take long for the then-17-year-old striker to break into the first team, making his top-flight debut three months later, in March 1996.
He was named the EPL’s young player of the year at the end of the 1999/00 season and helped Leeds to the Champions League semi-finals in 2000/01.
Money woes at Leeds led to Kewell becoming part of a mass player dump in 2003, but he’d done more than enough to have EPL giants sniffing around.
He landed a contract with Liverpool straight after leaving Leeds, playing an amazing 49 games for the Reds in 2003 and continued to impress as the Reds reached the 2005 League Cup and Champions League final.
Turkish club Galatasaray picked him up after his Liverpool contract ran out in mid-2008 and Kewell made an immediate impact for the Super Lig champions, slotting 22 goals in 63 games over three seasons.
After the stint in Turkey, he signed a three-year contract with Melbourne Victory in 2011.
He scored eight goals in 25 games in the 2011/12 A-League season before returning to England to care for his mother-in-law.
He played for Al Gharafa in the 2012/13 Qatar season before joining the Melbourne Heart in 2013 and promptly being handed the captaincy.
Even if injury has marred his career, Kewell remains and will always be remembered as one of the greatest Australian players, raising the popularity of the sport and inciting a lot of national pride for the Socceroos.
Source: ABC