Craig Goodwin is revelling in a back-to-the-future emancipation with Adelaide United
CRAIG Goodwin is revelling in a back-to-the-future emancipation with Adelaide United after a bitter end to his European adventure. And the star winger is now steering his focus on kicking goals and another crack at the Socceroos.
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AN Australian outcast languishing in the cruel depths of a North Sea winter, Craig Goodwin was accustomed to the fickle nature of European football and life.
Resilience forged in teenage heartbreak, then living hand-to-mouth serving secret herbs and spices had proven Goodwin’s survival card before cracking professional soccer. It would again.
An impressive 18-month record at top-flight Dutch club Sparta Rotterdam and dreams of playing for the Socceroos at the 2018 Russia World Cup were vaporised in January when legend Dick Advocaat took control at The Castle.
Goodwin, 26, is now revelling in a back-to-the-future emancipation with Adelaide United after leaving Sparta.
“I was caught in a worsening situation where the coach didn’t want to play me and the club didn’t want to let me go. I was caught in the middle,” recalls Goodwin.
“It’s good to get the chance to leave and enjoy myself again, and focus on Adelaide United.”
Goals in three consecutive matches steered the Reds into this month’s FFA Cup final against Sydney FC and propelled Goodwin into recruit-of-the-year contention.
However, a CV that includes confronting Wayne Rooney’s England playing for Australia, Adelaide’s 2015-16 A-League championship, European success and a million-dollar return to Hindmarsh masks a graduation from soccer’s school of hard knocks.
Soccer has never come easy for the kid from One Tree Hill. Goodwin, 26, lost a contract with Scottish club Inverness, aged 15, when Premier League relegation triggered the shock closure of its academy.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, having been overlooked at state junior level for Adelaide United’s youth set-up, then narrowly missing a contract with English Premier League club Crystal Palace.
“You can feel like you’re all alone at times,” Goodwin says. “Every player has to find their own path and different ways to make it.
“In terms of a football career, it’s the ongoing battle of a disappointment or rejection from a young age, when you get cut from teams. There are always obstacles.”
It was Scottish football mentor John Walker who would pick Goodwin off the canvas, resolving to make or break the skinny teenager.
“He taught me a lot from the mental side in terms of never giving up,” Goodwin says. “He told my Dad he would try and find my breaking point.
“I met him after I got cut from the state team. He was someone, for sure, who helped me improve.”
However, the figure who would unearth the tiger within Goodwin was consumed, tragically, by his own demons.
“He passed away which was obviously a sad time,” Goodwin says, in a quiet tone. In a double blow, Goodwin was cut from Adelaide’s youth side, to the dismay of Gleeson High school mate and now Reds defender Jordan Elsey.
Goodwin’s indomitable will and razor ambition then kicked in.
“Goody” left home for Melbourne at 16 in search of his big break. Walker was gone but his football legacy remained with the indebted Goodwin, who adopted a “whatever it takes” mantra on arrival at Victorian state league side the Oakleigh Cannons.
“Working at KFC was a good grounding experience,” says Goodwin, who “worked front counter” at the fast-food chain in 2011 while attempting to land a youth contract with A-League club Melbourne Heart, now Mebourne City.
“I was taking orders, handing food out, having to put a smile on,” he said.
“It wasn’t the ideal job but the only one I could get that would allow me to keep trying to push for my football and pay the bills at the same time.
“I had a really old, dark green Hyundai Elantra that had done 350,000km. I remember scrapping around the house I shared with some teammates at Oakleigh for 5c coins to get to training. Otherwise, I would have to call Mum to put some money in my account to buy petrol.”
Goodwin’s perseverance paid off, voted man of the match in his A-League debut for Melbourne Heart in 2013 before Newcastle Jets swooped to offer the South Australian’s first professional contract.
“There was a period where I did what I had to do to give myself the opportunity to play football,” says Goodwin, who made a satisfying homecoming to Hindmarsh in 2014 after 44 games with the Jets.
The lessons of Goodwin’s tough ride a decade earlier proved instructive when frozen out at Rotterdam by the uncompromising Advocaat.
All naivety, sense of justice and belonging drained in fierce unison from Goodwin when engulfed by Advocaat’s big chill a world away from his home in Adelaide’s north.
“You are there for one reason, to play football and chase your dreams of doing well over there,” says Goodwin, recruited by Advocaat’s predecessor, Alex Pastoor, hot off Adelaide United’s A-League 2015-16 championship triumph.
“I did quite well in the first season, managed to get four goals and seven assists,” Goodwin says.
“I had the match on the last day of the season where I came off the bench, got two assists and a goal. We won and stayed up in the Eredivisie (top division).
“We had some really good moments, knocked PSV Eindhoven out of the League Cup and we beat Feyenoord in the year they won the league title,” Goodwin says.
When the new coach came in that is when it changed for me; (he) wouldn’t speak to me, didn’t know what position I played.”
Soccer players sacrifice everything to secure a top-flight European contract.
Goodwin was, in alarming contrast, forced to buy his way out of Sparta just seven months after saving the club from relegation.
“It really is strange as you go into training and feel like a nobody filling in the numbers and, a month ago, you’re playing and scoring and being involved in the Socceroos camps,” Goodwin says.
“We went away for the winter break training camp and I kind of realised I wasn’t involved and new players were signed.”
Stranded in The Netherlands, Goodwin watched as overtures from Serie A outfit Benevento Calcio and Japanese powerhouse Urawa Red Diamonds were ignored by Sparta.
“The coach wanted to use his players, which I understood, but the club didn’t want to let me go,” says Goodwin.
“Any options that came up for me in the transfer window were blocked, so I got stuck there.
“It was a bit of a pity as I had a good support group there in Rotterdam. Kenny Dougall – who was in the recent Socceroos squad – was there, so that made it easier having another Australian.
“I made some good friends with the foreigners that were there, too.
“I remember the fans stopping the team bus before games chanting, holding up traffic ... they’re so passionate. We’d go to lunch, coffee, play card games. It was a very liveable city but it was the last six or seven months that went downhill.”
Flagging in no-man’s land with Sparta, Goodwin’s priority was to work for – and learn from – a respected manager with hard-line experience.
Marco Kurz – boasting a stellar, comprehensive coaching and playing record in Germany’s Bundesliga – emerged as Goodwin’s unlikely beacon of hope in Adelaide.
Goodwin has returned as Adelaide United’s million-dollar signing – ignoring a mega-deal from Sydney FC, to reconnect with the game near family and friends.
Recalibrating under the eye of Kurz – who Goodwin rates as the equal of any coach in Europe – was central to his home-town decision.
“I’m learning a lot from Marco and the way he wants me to play in the team and it’s a little more different to what I’ve e done previously,” he says.
“I’m really relishing it. He just wants the simple things done very well.”
Goodwin concedes he was “sapped” by a mystery virus that hospitalised him for three days entering Friday’s A-League 1-1 opener against Sydney FC at Hindmarsh.
FFA silverware on October 30 at Hindmarsh would present the perfect start to Goodwin’s second Reds coming and a quest for “more golden memories”.
Two years in The Netherlands sharpened Goodwin, whose finesse, vision, poise on ball and long-range shots have lit up the FFA Cup and A-League. He enjoys the expectation of being Kurz’s game-breaker.
“I feel like I’m a better player now,” he says.
“I’d liked to have stay a bit longer in Europe and I still have aspirations to go abroad again.
“But, for now, it’s about getting the best out of my game and doing the best for Adelaide.
“I want to win silverware and am fully focused on that.”
Goodwin replaced Socceroos linchpin Aaron Mooy against England two years ago at the Stadium of Light and believes a thundering A-League return before Christmas could be rewarded with a call-up by Socceroos boss Graham Arnold.
“My dad is from England so that international was nice for him, and to get some minutes against players who are playing every week in the Premier League,” says Goodwin, who drew inspiration from mate Kenny Dougall’s Socceroos call-up against Kuwait last Wednesday.
“To be involved, it gave me self-belief that I’m capable of reaching that level if I play consistent football and jump on the opportunities I get from here.
“I have ambitions and it would be fantastic to be able to make the Asian Cup. If I can have a really good start to the campaign with Adelaide, then maybe there’s no reason why I can’t get an opportunity with that.” Goodwin is heartened that Arnold – another Australian with a fundamental respect for the A-League – succeeded Ange Postecoglou.
“That’s my goal coming back here – to push for the Socceroos,” he says.
“I know to do that I have to be performing well for Adelaide, getting results to show Graham Arnold that I really have something to offer.
“I think I started reasonably well with the FFA Cup games. I feel I have the ability to go a step further.
“I’m really excited about the future of the Socceroos with Graham Arnold.”
The kid who lived out of his car in Melbourne seven years ago just shelled out for a dream home at Mawson Lakes.
All the money borrowed and begged from parents and a lifetime of unconditional support has been worth it.
“My Mum and Dad pushed me and it was them who paid for me to go overseas and trial,” he saysd.
“They saw something in me and provided every possible opportunity.
“When I started playing senior football, I thought ‘I want to do this’ and always had confidence I could match it with anyone I came up against.
“I did pay back all I could when I signed my first contract at Newcastle Jets in 2013 but I can never repay the faith they showed in me to get where I am.”