By Vince Rugari
Joe Gauci should run, not walk, according to the man whose footsteps he is about to trace from Australia to Aston Villa. “Just go. Now,” said Mark Bosnich, the former Socceroo and Stan Sport expert. “Right at this moment, with the way the A-League’s going, there is no calculation.”
The great irony is that Gauci’s impending move to the Premier League is proof that Australia’s embattled domestic competition, for all of its many faults, is at least getting something right.
Joe Gauci made his debut for the Socceroos last year against Ecuador.Credit: Getty Images
According to sources familiar with negotiations, who were not authorised to speak publicly, the transfer fee Villa will pay Adelaide United for the 23-year-old goalkeeper will eclipse the outbound Australian record for the third time in eight months. The deal could be officially announced as early as Thursday as Gauci, who is in Qatar with the Socceroos for the Asian Cup, has reportedly completed his medical.
For almost two decades, Zejlko Kalac’s 1995 move from Sydney United to Leicester City for $1.7 million was the benchmark. That changed last year when Socceroo Jordan Bos was sold for over $2 million by Melbourne City to Belgian side KVC Westerlo - and then his ex-City teammate Marco Tilio broke the record again when he transferred to Celtic for a slightly bigger sum.
Gauci’s fee, sources say, is even bigger. While it amounts to little more than a rounding error for Aston Villa, it is vital money for any A-League club - and Adelaide United, who have also shifted Nestory Irankunda to Bayern Munich in a reported $1.75 million deal that will take effect at the end of the season, are exploiting the transfer market better than anyone, with champions Central Coast Mariners the sole exception.
Gauci has established himself as the A-League’s best goalkeeper over the last few seasons, as well as the number one challenger to Maty Ryan with the Socceroos, having recently deputised for the national team skipper during his recovery from a broken cheekbone.
Aston Villa are coached by Unai Emery.Credit: AP
His move will cap off a meteoric rise from obscurity. Only four years ago, Gauci was deemed surplus to requirements at Melbourne City, having been released by them and previously by the Mariners without playing a single A-League match. In between, he briefly returned to the NPL in South Australia.
When he signed for Adelaide United at the start of the 2020-21 campaign, he was again seen as a backup option - but when James Delianov failed a last-minute fitness test before a clash with Melbourne Victory he finally made his professional debut, and he hasn’t looked back.
While Gauci will be sacrificing regular game time at Aston Villa, he will have the opportunity to learn from training with Emiliano Martinez, the Argentinian World Cup-winner who Bosnich rates as the best goalkeeper on the planet.
“Martinez is a game-changer,” said Bosnich, who joined Villa from Sydney United on a free transfer in 1992, and went on to play for them 172 times. “He makes the saves - ie World Cup final, against Australia in the round of 16 - that make the difference. It will be a wonderful chance for him to learn. They’re obviously thinking in terms of having a top back-up, and making sure that they secure the services of one of the top goalkeeping talents, you’d have to say, in the whole of our region. It’s a wonderful investment for Aston Villa and for Joe Gauci himself.”
The recent return of Swedish veteran Robin Olsen from injury means Gauci will be Villa’s third-choice goalkeeper initially, but the expectation is Gauci may be loaned out next season to a club in the Championship, putting him on a runway to eventually break into the first team if he improves enough.
Gauci will remarkably become the second goalkeeper Adelaide has sold to a Premier League club in this transfer window, after 19-year-old Steven Hall signed for Brighton & Hove Albion earlier in January for an undisclosed fee, which Bosnich said was a testament to the work being done by Adelaide’s goalkeeping coach Eugene Galekovic.
And he is not the only Socceroos player to have found a new club - Tilio has returned to Melbourne City on loan from Celtic, it was announced on Thursday morning, while Aziz Behich has left City to play with Cristiano Ronaldo at Saudi club Al-Nassr for the rest of the season in a surprise loan offer he said he couldn’t turn down.
“It’ll be a great experience,” Behich said. “I’m stoked and really excited and looking forward to getting started once my job’s done here [at the Asian Cup].”
Teammates at Camp Socceroo have begun dialling up the ‘SIUUUUU’ celebrations in tribute to Behich, on the training pitch and elsewhere. “It just seems to be a little bit of an addiction at the moment,” striker Mitch Duke said. “We just banter with it in some of our card games and stuff that we’ve been playing.”
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