Tim Cahill finally hangs up the boots after a remarkable career
After some 600 club games played in seven countries and four continents, only defenders won’t miss Tim Cahill’s presence and a supernatural ability to appear in the right place at the right time.
So long, then, Tim, and thanks for the memories.
There were quite a lot along the way.
The news that Tim Cahill is retiring from all professional football feels almost disappointing, like an experiment to see how long one athlete could hold off the inevitability of age has finally reached its conclusion.
After some 600 club games played in seven countries and four continents, only defenders won’t miss his presence and a supernatural ability to appear in the right place at the right time.
Anyone who has seen (or read) Cats will know he was the Macavity of the penalty area – the mystery cat who “breaks the law of gravity (with) his powers of levitation”.
Defenders sought him here and sought him there but Cahill wasn’t there – until it was too late and he was there, ghosting in to the penalty box yet again to outwit and out jump centre backs way taller.
Remember his goal against Serbia at the 2010 World Cup? Cahill gave up 7cm and 12cm respectively to Aleksander Litkovic and Nemanja Vidic, but bestrode them both for the header that put Australia ahead.
That ability – not so much spring-heeled as hover-footed, for he both leapt highest and hung in the air longest – was his trademark in England. That, and goals in the Merseyside derby – at one stage he had scored more goals against Liverpool than any other Evertonian since the Second World War. No wonder the Blues fans adored him.
He was hardly shabby with his feet, though, as the world saw against Holland almost five years ago. But Cahill’s was a hybrid technique, like a hand-built car designed to maximize its constituent parts.
For the first decade of his career it was hard to define him precisely in one position – a No.8 but too attacking, a second striker who would chase and harry the opposition towards his own box. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the ball was drawn to Cahill or vice versa, but very often the end result was the ball’s appearance in the opposition net.
His longevity was all the more remarkable given the physical toll on his body that he just shrugged off. He was hugely proud of the fact that he didn’t miss a training session at the World Cup in Russia aged 38, able to withstand the gruelling demands of Bert van Marwijk’s double sessions.
The fact he was also crafty enough one day to fool the whole coaching staff that his group had completed their competitive relays one lap early – to their widespread mirth - also summed up his streetsmarts, and his sense of mischief.
He won then, and he won most duels in a remarkable career that lasted 33 days short of 21 years – and left inestimable memories. So long, Tim.
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