Mark Viduka: the Socceroos great whose Croatian roots ran deep | Joe Gorman | Football

Mark Viduka: the Socceroos great whose Croatian roots ran deep | Joe Gorman | Football

The winter of 1992 brought Mark Viduka and Mark Rudan together for the very first time. They were both 16 and had spent most of their lives at the Croatian soccer clubs of Melbourne and Sydney, and had both been awarded scholarships to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

“What nationality are you?” Viduka asked Rudan. “Croatian,” came the response.

They became inseparable. They would talk about Hajduk Split, their favourite club in Croatia, and compare passports to decide which was the more Croatian. It was decided that the name “Marko Ante” Rudan trumped the anglicised “Mark Anthony” Viduka.

But on the wall above his bed at the AIS, Viduka hung a picture of the Croatian president, Franjo TuÄ'man, and in his wallet he kept a picture of Zvonimir Boban, the Croatian soccer-star-turned-independence-hero. Together Viduka and Rudan would belt out Croat independence songs after games, and teach their AIS team-mates the words to sing along.

Of all the AIS graduates, Viduka was the quickest to adapt to men’s soccer. He made his NSL debut in 1993, and scored his first senior goal in just his second match. After each goal he would run to the sidelines, right arm raised, left hand tugging at his shirt to kiss the club badge.

This immediately drew the ire of those who wanted to see the worst in his community. “Is it necessary for him to give the fascist salute and kiss the Croatian flag on his shirt every time he scores a goal?” complained one letter writer in 1994. “If he loves Croatia so much, he should return to the land of his parents.”

When asked on national television why he performed the celebration, Viduka just smiled, shrugged his shoulders and replied: “Because the oldies like it.”

For his devotion to his club and respect for the elders of his community, Viduka represented all that was good and right about Australian soccer. He stood at over six feet tall, with shy eyes, a small grin and a floppy haircut. He possessed unshakable balance, a combination of poise and power not seen before or since. By 1994, Melbourne Knights games had become the Mark Viduka variety hour, his opponents reduced to props in a one-man theatrical performance.

But he was as lazy off the field as he was luxurious on it. He didn’t train particularly hard, and he would not go to the gym unless ordered to. He ate fast food, and spoke his mind. When asked by one reporter what he did away from soccer, he said he liked to sleep. When pressed on post-career plans, he said he wanted to “live it up”. He had swagger. Even the way he wore his jersey, with the front always slightly untucked, gave him an air of casual assurance.

Not everyone saw these qualities straight away. If his surname were Fitzpatrick instead of Viduka, if his club were Collingwood instead of Melbourne Knights, if his sport was Australian rules football instead of soccer, he would have been the delight of an entire nation. Instead, outsiders and soccer’s assimilationists queried his loyalty to Australia. Others wondered if he had the temperament to match his talent.

Viduka buried these concerns in an avalanche of goals. In 1993â€"94, his debut season, he scored 17 goals in 21 appearances, winning the Golden Boot, the Under-21 player of the year, and the senior player of the year. This was an historic personal achievement, but he longed for a championship â€" not just for himself but for his club, which had lost three grand finals in four seasons.

“Every single week used to revolve around me going to the game, home and away,” Viduka once recalled. “Me and my dad, we were part of this whole thing. I’ve got four sisters and they used to come to every game. We watched Melbourne Croatia play and hoped to God. When I look at a player who is not Croatian, and I think of him playing for my club, I probably loved him more than I did the Croatian players. I grew up with people â€" not just Croats â€" different nationalities. We were a football family. We were Europeans. It was natural for us to play football, because that was what our parents showed us first â€" that was their game, a European game. Aussie kids who were born here with an Australian background, usually they went to play cricket or footy or something else.”

By round 20, everything appeared perfect at Melbourne Knights. Coach Mirko Bazic’s investment in youth was reaping a fruitful harvest, and he had the side playing consistent and clinical soccer. Viduka was top of the goal-scoring charts. And with Middle Park demolished, the Croatian Sports Centre â€" later known as Knights Stadium â€" had become the best soccer-specific venue in Victoria. The supporters could not be happier.

Photograph: University of Queensland Press

Yet for the final two rounds and the two major semi-finals, Melbourne Knights were forced to continue without Viduka, who was on leave with the Australian Under-20 team in Qatar for the World Youth Championships. There he wrapped a red, white and blue captain’s armband around his green and gold sleeve and, alongside former AIS team-mates Mark Rudan, Clint Bolton and Josip Skoko, qualified for the knockout stages of the tournament.

With Viduka on national team duty in Qatar, the Knights lost the two-legged playoff to Adelaide City, forcing them into a preliminary final against South Melbourne at Olympic Park. “We are one team with Viduka,” admitted coach Mirko Bazic, “and another team without him.”

It was the third time in five seasons that South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights had met in a finals match. South Melbourne had the clear psychological advantage, having won two, including the grand final in 1991. But in 1991 Viduka was a ballboy. In 1995 he was a lethal striker looking to make up for lost time.

After just 13 minutes, in pouring rain, Knights midfielder Danny Tiatto careered along the wet turf and clumsily upended a South Melbourne midfielder. The referee flashed a red card in Tiatto’s face and ordered him from the field. It should have been advantage to South Melbourne, but Kresimir Marusic had other ideas. He created two opportunities for Viduka, who finished both to put Knights 2â€"1 ahead at half-time. On 53 minutes, Viduka scored again â€" his second hat-trick of the season, and the winning goal. “I really only had three chances and I took them all,” he said simply after the match. “That’s what I’m paid to do.”

With the South Melbourne hoodoo put to rest, attention turned to the grand final against Adelaide City. Twice in the previous three seasons City had beaten Melbourne Knights to win the NSL trophy. And although Viduka hadn’t agreed to any contract offers, the Knights fans knew it would be his last game for the club. When asked in the pre-game build up where he was headed, Viduka was evasive. “I think I’d be able to fit in most parts of Europe,” he mused. “I’m not too fond of England, I just think it’s a bit too quick for me, and I’m sort of a lazy player. I don’t really like running that much. Anywhere in Europe â€" Germany, France, you know, wherever I can get a good contract.”

Just as he did in the 1991 grand final, Andrew Marth, the Melbourne Knights captain, scored the opening goal. This time Knights did not let the lead slip. With just minutes remaining before half-time, Viduka picked up possession on the left, drew the attention of three defenders, and slid a neat pass to Marusic. With the Adelaide defence out of shape, Marusic crossed for Joe Spiteri to secure a famous 2â€"0 victory for Melbourne Knights.

Just as he did in 1993â€"94, Viduka won the Golden Boot, the Under-21 player of the year and the senior player of the year. He had been the first player to win the clean sweep of awards, and the only person ever to win it in consecutive seasons. Australian soccer would never again see a man like him. Not only for his goal-scoring prowess and his records, but because of what he represented. Since the age of six, he had only ever appeared for Melbourne Knights â€" the club that he was born to play for. He would never play for another Australian club. In an increasingly mercenary age, he was truly the last of the Mohicans.

By the end of 1995, he would sign for Croatia Zagreb, embarking on a career abroad that took him to Celtic in Scotland and Leeds, Middlesborough and Newcastle in England. By 2006, he would captain Australia at their first World Cup in 32 years.

But when Melbourne Knights arrived home, a throng of jubilant supporters mobbed the players at the airport. Croatian flags were thrust in front of television cameras, and a reporter noted that the fans had “failed to adapt to the name change” as chants drowned out the terminal. At the centre of it all was a sweaty, wide-eyed Viduka, grinning from ear to ear. Like a rock star entering a mosh pit, he chanted “CRO-A-ZIA, CRO-A-ZIA, CRO-A-ZIA!”

• This is an edited extract from The Death and Life of Australian Soccer by Joe Gorman (UQP, RRP $32.95), out next week.
  

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