Tim Cahill

Do you know what? It wasn't too long.

But he suddenly started competing with Tim Cahill for a position.

Oh, yeah.

Um-

John texted as well.

Uh, he said, uh, "Tim Cahill's goal against the Netherlands-

Yeah

...

So if he believes one of those guys is the guy, does he just run with it now and say, "Look, I'm gonna give you the next 30 to 40 games ahead of, uh, the World Cup in 2030 and just go with you"? Or is, do they believe Matt Freese is the guy, and now Matt Freese with 30 to 40 more internationals and hundreds more, or a hundred more club games is a much better goalkeeper? I don't know the answer to that, and I'm actually curious how you, how you view that.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I, I certainly don't know the answer either, right? A- and I can talk from experience in terms of the experiences that I had during the national team and going into camp and understanding that, okay, Tim is the number one, and, you know, all of a sudden now, what do I bring to the group? How can I, I individually get better? How can I help the group? Um-

Mm-hmm

... you know, I think when you look at this group, that is a huge decision, uh, on what they do.

... and he rode that train into the World Cup.

There you go.

So I asked Tim this this morning on our pod too, and, uh, I'll ask you the same.

If they believe, and I have no idea, I'm just saying.

It's always so weird in the A-League because it's so unpredictable.

That year, Melbourne City has signed Tim Cahill.

City really were trying to position themselves as sort of the big club.

Obviously, David Villa was there the previous season, but they didn't really have a good... core of a team and i remember there was a lot of discussion at the time like city will sweep this league like they've got they've got a bunch of players from the adelaide side that been champions of previous year they got like michael jacobson they had um just a good score they'd like a rat boy uh what about favorites

yeah yeah they'd look bratton uh like oh that guy yeah uh and let's see look around the league as well it It's so hard these days to put into context just how there was so much...

I don't even know the word for it.

There was so much going on around Melbourne City and their signing of Tim Cahill that this was a different era of the A-League and how...

it was covered is just, it was mania compared to what we get nowadays.

Uh, 29,000 there, 11,000 more than the previous best, uh, in the modern era anyway.

Uh, that was 2016 when it was all about Tim Cahill, wasn't it, and Bruno Fornaroli, and City, uh, beat Sydney FC at the same venue, Mel-- uh, AAMI Park.

Uh, so yeah, I would argue that that's three of the past five finals have, have taken big strides in entrenching this cup final, uh, in a big way.

Yeah, and it's important that it fi-- continues to find its place.

Now, Besart Berisha scoring at a packed, um, the Aussie Rules ground there, down there, what's it called? Marvel Stadium.

Um, Timmy Cahill's goal, you know, Johnny Aloisi, Archie Thompson.

Th- these are, these are great moments of the history of that rivalry, and it shouldn't be forgotten.

However, what the South Melbourne entry into the discussion over the last f- few weeks, if not years, but what sort of burst forth on Saturday night was this could be another dimension.