GFP’s Top 10 Sportspeople of 2016 — Number 5
Love him or hate him; respect him or laugh at him, Australian soccer in 2016 was dominated by Tim Cahill.
He started the year getting released by his club in China, Shanghai Shenhua, which naturally raised discussion that he might come home to the A-League.
He responded by making it clear that he’d be looking for a lucrative contract in China — he ended up in Guangzhou — and heavily criticised the FFA for lacking the “vision” (read willingness to shell out money) to attract huge name marquee players like himself.
While these strident critiques of a league that’s trying to compete with the Big Bash rankled lots of soccer fans, the FFA set about stumping up as much vision as they could pull in before dumping a whole load of it on his doorstep when he got ditched by Guangzhou just a few months later.
This brought him to the recently cashed up Melbourne City, and entailed introducing a new marquee rule whereby the FFA would pay part of the salary of any player whose profile deemed worthy of it.
To date, the only player who has fit these nebulous rules has been Timmy himself, despite the best efforts of a few other clubs.
Naturally this annoyed opposition fans, meaning Australia’s greatest goalscorer immediately became a pantomime villain figure.
This meant that all eyes were on him in round two when City took on cross-town rivals Melbourne Victory at Etihad Stadium. So how did Timmy respond?
Like this:
With that one incredible hit, Cahill justified every single cent of the FFA’s outlay.
All of a sudden they had the perfect marketing tool; a world-class strike in one of the competition’s marquee fixtures from comfortably the most high-profile Aussie to ever play the strike.
The hit reverberated in Europe, China and America where Cahill had played, bringing genuine world-wide attention to our little league that could.
Cahill has also converted soccer agnostics; think of the Hawthorn fan types looking for a new bandwagon whose interest would have been piqued by Cahill’s appearance seeing that goal in his first big match for the club.
He’s also obsessed with his own legacy, which leads to him being the ultimate professional. Cahill always hangs around to sign bulk autographs for kids, which is priceless advertising.
City’s outlay has also been justified. The header which won them the FFA Cup — their first piece of silverware — was vintage Timmy.
Cahill has already been worth his weight in gold for the FFA and City, and no amount of self-absorbed Instagram posts, self-righteous responses to getting booed, or poorly conceived clothing labels can change that.
We salute you Timmy, you glorious king (or money-grabbing mercenary, depending on who you ask).
