Inside story: How Anthony Koutoufides went from his worst season in 1998 to dominating the AFL in 2000
Anthony Koutoufides was on another planet in the year 2000, with his level of dominance rarely seen. Yet only two years earlier he was in the midst of his ‘worst season’. This is how Kouta and the Blues created a club legend.
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It was two years earlier when the turning point came for Anthony Koutoufides.
Struggling after the loss of his father, Jim, in early 1998, Koutoufides was in the midst of his “worst season” and football was the furthest thing from his mind.
His training slipped, he admits he wasn’t fit enough and was drinking too much.
Then the intervention came.
“When I look back on ‘98 it was probably the worst season I had because of the death of my father,” Koutoufides recalled.
“It was a pinnacle moment there, I think it was Round 7 where I just struggled to get a kick and I remember Barry Mitchell and (assistant coach) Wayne Brittain sitting me down and saying ‘What are you doing? We understand your father has passed away, but you’re not fit enough to play footy’.
“I certainly wasn’t. My mind was just so much on my father that footy was just insignificant to me at that stage. I was drinking too much and really not training like a true professional should, so I got found out.
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“That moment there when they sat me down that’s when I had a good hard think about everything and thought of my father. That’s when I thought ‘What an idiot I am’. I know my father would have wanted me to play the best footy I could and not drink and forget about footy because then I would have just wasted my talent. I know he would have wanted me to play my best footy.
“That’s when I went ‘It’s time to really go to another level’ and I just trained harder than ever.”
Two years later, no one could accuse Koutoufides of wasting his talent.
By the year 2000, the man known as “Kouta” was the best player in the competition.
Athletic and powerful, he could play anywhere on the ground – and did. In his 20 games that season, Koutoufides averaged 26 disposals and almost two goals a match.
As the world embarked on a new millennium, Koutoufides delivered a football season for the ages that would ultimately net him a five-year multi-million contract with the Blues.
Yet despite his superhuman efforts that year, he was denied the game’s biggest individual prize and also missed out on his club’s best-and-fairest, which was won by Brett Ratten and Scott Camporeale.
His hot streak of form had started the year before, with his final-quarter heroics in the Blues’ thrilling 1999 preliminary final win against Essendon legendary.
Koutoufides said his preliminary final performance, coupled with a move to more time in the midfield, had helped take his game to another level in 2000.
“No doubt that ’99 game, that prelim final gave me the confidence leading into the next year,” he said.
“The year 2000 came and I was still playing at centre half-back and they would throw me in the midfield and all of a sudden I would finish the game with 30-something possessions. So it got to a point where they thought ‘What do we do? Do we leave him at centre half-back where he is doing really well or do we put him in the midfield?’ and so they started to play me more in a midfield-forward kind of a role.
“That’s when I was able to string so many good games together … no doubt my best footy was being around the ball.”
THE BIG MOMENT
North Melbourne had been a nemesis for Carlton since the mid-1990s.
The pain of the Blues’ 35-point Grand Final loss to the Kangaroos still lingered, but their losing streak to North had dated back four years earlier.
Koutoufides was all too aware of this and knew if Carlton was going to go to the next level – the Blues needed to take down the premiers.
So in Round 11 at Princes Park, Koutoufides came to play.
In his most dominant performance of the season, he amassed 38 disposals and kicked five goals.
“North Melbourne were such a nemesis for us because we had not beaten them since ’95 and I knew that, too,” Koutoufides said.
“In the back of my head that was just one for me to have that little bit more reason to go out and play that little bit harder against North Melbourne.
“That and they were coached by Denis (Pagan) and the last time we had beaten them was the 95 prelim final and then we had not been able to get over them since.
“I thought as a club if we were going to stand up and prove that we were going to another level, we had to beat North Melbourne.”
The stats didn’t lie that day. Koutoufides was on a one-man mission. Of his 38 disposals, 24 of them were contested and he also pulled in eight marks and had 10 clearances.
Carlton assistant coach Wayne Brittain said Koutoufides’ game was one of the best he had seen.
“There was even a time where (Wayne) Carey went back onto him at Princes Park,” Brittain said.
“Carlton had a lot of trouble with the Kangaroos throughout that period. They were a great side, they were very hard to beat and they had some great tussles with them over the journey.
“Koutoufides in that game, it was in the balance and he just picked it up and carried us over the line. It really was a key point for us in the season, I think we went on to win about 13 straight.”
Brittain says he has never seen another player put together a streak of football like it.
An assistant to David Parkin at Carlton in 2000 before taking over the reigns as senior coach at the end of that year, Brittain said Koutoufides’ size, athleticism and versatility made him a weapon.
“There are not many that have ever played a 14 or 15 game patch like Kouta played that year,” Brittain said.
“It was an incredible patch of footy that he played, it really was. It was a joy to coach because it was like you have this massive trump card up your sleeve.
“When he trained and he did any one-on-one stuff he was impossible to beat. He had great balance, great size, he had a great instinct for the game, he always made the right decisions.”
Koutoufides nominated Brittain and former Sydney and Carlton onballer Mitchell as two of “his greatest mentors” during that period in his career.
Brittain said the ‘99 preliminary final had given Koutoufides the platform to propel his game in 2000 and nominated Mitchell as also playing a key role.
“The ‘99 prelim final I think showed Kouta the levels that he could get to,” Brittain said.
“He never had the real fitness levels to be able to get to that level consistently and Barry Mitchell – they are both pretty good mates – and Mitch was doing our fitness and he got hold of him and virtually showed him how hard you needed to work to get to that level again and then hold that for longer periods.
“So I think he can take a lot of credit. He pushed Kouta and he worked with Kouta really closely.”
THE TEAMMATE
Ang Christou reckons he had the “best seat in the house”.
Christou and Koutoufides had been the best of mates since their early days at Carlton and the pair’s close friendship gave the Blues’ defender the best vantage point for what he rates as one of the greatest seasons he has ever seen a footballer play.
He described watching Koutoufides at his peak in 2000 as like seeing him play against “primary school kids” and said he was doing the Dustin Martin “don’t argue” long before Dusty.
“His 1999 was an amazing year, (he got) a lot of accolades, but 2000 I think was probably one of the best years that I have ever seen a footballer play at the one given time,” Christou said.
“He was so versatile, he would play at opposite ends of the ground, he would play in the middle, people would be bouncing off him, (he would be) picking up the ball with one hand and fending off.
“You see Dustin Martin fending off now and people go like ‘Oh, wow’. Kouta was doing that back then.
“He played like he was playing against primary school kids … he was an athletic beast.”
Christou said Koutoufides had the confidence in his game to take on anyone that year.
“He would either play on greats or greats would play on him,” Christou said.
“That was the thing that was fascinating for me. Every week was like a battle. It’s a bit far fetched, but it was like a (Michael) Jordan, he just thought mate ‘Bring it on. Whoever it is, bring it on’.”
THE HEARTBREAK
The Blues had just suffered their first loss in 14 matches when they went down to the Western Bulldogs by three points in Round 19 at Princes Park.
Next up was to be that year’s premiers, the undefeated Bombers.
“It had been such a big build-up against Essendon,” Koutoufides said.
“We had won 13 games in a row and we had lost to the Bulldogs by less than a goal and then we came up against Essendon, who were the form team of the comp.
“There were 90-odd thousand people there and there was so much anticipation because of what we did to them in the preliminary final the year before.”
But early, in what had been billed as the match of the season, disaster struck.
Koutoufides suffered a season-ending knee injury after a collision with Bomber Jason Johnson.
“In that first quarter, Jason Johnson came across me and just butted knees and I tore my posterior (cruciate ligament),” Koutoufides said.
“As soon as he hit me, I was like there is something wrong here.
“That six-week injury turned into more like a nine-month injury. It just kept swelling. I was trying to get back for the finals, but I trained and I was almost ready to go ‘Yep, I’m in’ and one last jump and something grabbed in my knee and swelled up like crazy and that was the end of me.”
It was the start of what turned out to be a costly few years on the injury front for Koutoufides.
“Unfortunately at the peak of my powers I just struck injury after injury,” Koutoufides said.
“I thought 2001 was another really great year … but then the (ACL) injury came at the end of that year as well. That’s the way it goes.
“At the peak of my powers, I just copped the injuries. But in saying that, I’ve seen some talents in the past not even get the chance that I had to play that many years as well so I can’t complain.”
WAS KOUTA ROBBED?
After his knee injury ended his season prematurely, Koutoufides finished fourth in the 2000 Brownlow Medal count, won by Melbourne’s Shane Woewodin, after being a hot favourite.
But Christou and Brittain still shake their heads, saying no other player had even come close to the performances of Koutoufides that year.
Woewodin polled 24 votes to claim Charlie ahead of the Western Bulldogs’ Scott West, while Koutoufides finished on 19 votes from his 20 games.
Even accounting for his missed games after his late-season injury, Christou believed the Brownlow that year should have belonged to his mate.
“I just thought he was robbed in 2000 because he just smashed everyone,” Christou said
“I think there was already enough runs on the board to have taken the accolade.
“There was no one that came really close. Who won that year, Woewodin? No disrespect, but give me a spell. Love the guy, he had a good year, too, but not as good as Kouta’s.
“They should have just handed it to him.”
Brittain agreed Koutoufides deserved to have won the sport’s top individual honour.
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“Any time you watch Kouta, Brownlow or no Brownlow, to me I don’t think a player was anywhere near him,” Brittain said.
“Woewodin won the Brownlow in that year. But there wasn’t a player that got within a bull’s roar of the performances of Koutoufides in that year.
“I’m not taking anything away from Woewodin, he was a very good player, but Kouta’s year was so special, you had to be blind Freddy to miss it.”
Koutoufides admits it would have been nice to have the Brownlow on his footy resume.
“The Brownlow was one thing I was not too concerned about back then when I lost it,” Koutoufides said.
“That’s the way it goes and that’s life. But I look back now and think ‘Geez, it would be nice achievement to say I was a Brownlow medallist’.
Originally published as Inside story: How Anthony Koutoufides went from his worst season in 1998 to dominating the AFL in 2000
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