The forgotten man of Aussie football

The Johnny Warren Foundation's profile received a massive boost after it named Harry Kewell as Australia's greatest ever footballer.

It was a most popular choice that reflected his superstar status within the football family.

The foundation also announced the greatest national team, Australia's greatest coach and Australia's greatest female player.

The 'team of the century' comprises a blend of past and current champions that beautifully bridges the gap between the old soccer and the new football, so to speak.

It is particularly encouraging to see that the achievements of yesteryear's trailblazers were not lost or forgotten in this modern era governed by a hungry media that craves on every aspect of the game and its protagonists.

Such 'best ever' selections are usually highly debatable if not downright controversial but the choices made by a panel of experts and a cross-section of the general public were generally well received.

With one exception, that is.

The nomination of Guus Hiddink as best 'Australian' coach certainly raised a few eyebrows because many would have expected our own Rale Rasic to get the gong he would have so richly deserved.

The Dutch legend earned his reward for taking Australia to the 2006 FIFA World Cup where the Socceroos more than gave a good account of themselves.

Australia beat Uruguay over two legs to qualify for the tournament in Germany and then survived a tough group featuring world champion Brazil, Croatia and Japan to reach the round of 16.

We all know how Australia lost to eventual champion Italy.

Mark Viduka and the boys in green and gold left the tournament with their heads held high after surprising many pundits with the quality of their football based on a mixture of aggression, technique and tactical awareness.

The Socceroos' class of 2006 will always be remembered as Australia's finest and most popular side, let's not forget that.

And Hiddink the master deserves credit for bringing the best out of his team.

But two points have to be made in the debate surrounding Hiddink and Rasic.

Hiddink was working with a set of seasoned Europe-based professionals, some of whom performed in big matches week in week out.

Rasic on the other hand had to do it with a group of part-timers whose biggest club match would have been a derby between, say, St George and Apia in front of 5000 people.

Also, Hiddink needed only two 'serious' matches to take the Aussies to the World Cup and it could so easily have gone wrong in that shootout lottery versus Uruguay in Sydney.

Rasic's players had to survive a minefield of treacherous matches in such difficult places as Auckland, Tehran and Seoul to reach their holy grail.

They did not have to face any South American team to qualify but none of their 11 qualifiers were easy, except for a home match against Indonesia, which they won 6-0.

Australia also performed admirably without much luck in the finals in West Germany after being drawn in a formidable group featuring the home side, East Germany and Chile.

It is not hard to see that Rasic's overall achievement was more remarkable if not more tangible than that of Hiddink, considering the degree of difficulty both coaches had to contend with.

Hiddink's massive reputation abroad may have swayed public and expert opinion in his favour, which was never the point of the foundation's 'greatest' exercise in the first place.

Kewell was named our greatest ever footballer not necessarily for what he achieved in Europe but for what he did for Aussie football.

And I have yet to be convinced about the real merits of football coaches who are so often judged on the basis of how their players perform on the field.

We tend to be ever so keen to glorify or crucify coaches when, after all, results can be determined by factors beyond their control or by mere centimetres and split seconds.

And what exactly is coaching greatness, anyway, and how do you define or gauge it?

That's a topic for another day.