Asian Cup 2019: Mark Milligan faces tough captain’s call

If the Asian Cup does mark the end of Mark Milligan’s international career, it’s not the way he’d envisioned it.

Australian skipper Mark Milligan heads the ball against the United Arab Emirates. Picture: AP

If the Asian Cup does mark the end of Mark Milligan’s international career, it’s not the way he’d envisioned it.

But the disappointing tournament defence has also doubled as a belated acknowledgment of the leader Australia’s most recent captain has always been, and the one he could yet become.

The 33-year-old is undecided whether to carry on his international career after Australia’s quarter-final exit at the hands of hosts the United Arab Emirates on Saturday (AEDT).

If he does call it quits after 13 years, Graham Arnold has flagged him as a coach in the making cut from the same cloth as Tony Popovic or Kevin Muscat.

“He’s a great professional, he works hard and he’s a great ­leader,” Arnold said. “He’s a very, very good player. I think out of this group he’ll be one of the coaches.

“You can see those type of ­people like Popovic and Muscat, those type of players that when they played they’d end up being a coach. I could probably have confidently said Popa and Musky would have been, and I’d say out of this group he’d be one you’d say he’ll end up being a coach. A deep thinker, but he reads the game very well.”

Milligan has been part of the ­national team since 2006, when, as a 20-year-old he received a shock call-up to Guus Hiddink’s World Cup squad.

“I remember back in 2006 I had to convince Guus Hiddink to put him in the squad, because Guus didn’t know anything really about him — he was a young kid,” Arnold said.

“He was my captain in the Olympic team (in 2008), and we’ve had a great relationship all those years. Players like him in North Korea, when we had to qualify, that last game in Pyongyang; artificial grass, freezing cold, under-23 team and we had to get a point to get through. Then your captain steps up and leads by ­example.”

Milligan’s loyalty has been ­unfaltering over a Socceroos ­career that, as it stands, has him at 79 caps — ranked an all-time ninth-highest alongside Mile ­Jedinak. Yet for so long he’s been almost an afterthought of a ­golden generation.

He didn’t play at the showpiece in Germany, nor the following one in South Africa, and it seems scarcely believable that the former Melbourne Victory skipper got only 90 minutes against Chile at Brazil 2014.

Eight years ago, it all very nearly fell to pieces when a young and ambitious Milligan didn’t show for an Olyroos camp to ­attend a trial with Arsenal.

He was dropped and then re­instated by then Olyroos coach Arnold, though his lack of a European passport meant his dreams of playing on the continent were never realised until last year’s move to Scottish club Hibernian.

In some ways the hard road has produced a grittier, more durable and dependable captain when he got the gig two months ago.

At his third Asian Cup he’s deftly prepared young faces for a first major tournament and marshalled the team on the park from both midfield and defence.

“At the start it was very difficult,” Milligan said. “We had players like Bresciano, Culina, Grella in their prime when I first came in. So to sort of nudge them out as a 20-year-old was quite difficult.

“Hopefully the young boys can see the time it took me and the persistence I had in sticking around and continuing to work hard; that you do get rewards for that, whenever that may be. It might be later on, it might come a little bit earlier for some. I’m just glad … to still be here and still be running out 120 minutes.”

Striker Mathew Leckie wants his long-time national teammate to be back in camp when qualification gets under way for the 2022 World Cup later this year. The pair have been international teammates since Leckie’s Australian debut in 2012, and the 27-year-old is hopeful Milligan won’t hang up his boots.

“He’s a leader, he’s a great ­player and obviously he’s got decisions to make,” Leckie said of the Socceroos captain. “I don’t know what he’s going to do but hopefully he sticks around longer. We’ve got a few new younger boys and it’s transition, he’s managed it very well. It was a pleasure to have him as captain, he had a fantastic tournament. Hopefully he can stick around longer.”

Additional reporting: AAP