He shot a quick left jab to the stem, a jolting right cross and another left then clutched both fists to his forehead. Chin locked to chest, he powered through the one-two-one before a swift duck and weave and a thumping right hook. The corner flag hit the deck harder than a heavyweight slams the canvas. The immortal celebration’s apt for Australian football’s greatest fighter. At a quarter to five in the afternoon in Kaiserslautern a looping throw-in sends yellow and blue shirts scrambling, and in the midst of it all Tim Cahill floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. His flawless (read: freakish) positional sense stems from the coolest head on the pitch. However, when he hit that winner against the Japanese and as he wagged his fingers at his teammates and the world’s cameras focused on his face, there’s a fraction of a second when Cahill had to fight back the tears. For the briefest moment his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth trembled as he realised the momentous nature of what he’d achieved: it’s a rare glimpse behind the bullish façade into the true heart of the Socceroos’ greatest player. By the time his Socceroos teammates piled around him he was already shouting and swearing – testosterone pumping out of every pore – as Australia lived to fight another day.
When Cahill knocked out the flag in the 2006 World Cup, Australian football found its talisman. He scored the Socceroos’ first and second World Cup goal on 12 June 2006, and after that the records kept tumbling: he eventually set nearly every Australian milestone and changed the sport forever. He was a legendary figure for English clubs Millwall and Everton, but from this moment until the day he retired he was the face of Australian football across the world. He’s Australia’s all-time leading male goalscorer. He scored five World Cup goals across four
