Quique: “To have Harry Kewell is very good news”

Harry Kewell still looks every inch a Premier League footballer. He has ink adorning his left bicep and his right hand, carries two phones, sports a trendy quiff, drives a 4×4 and is in very good physical shape. The way he dropped a shoulder, turned and made a swift exit out of one of the restaurants in Sopwell House following this interview was reminiscent of the kind of movement that tied right-backs in knots for years. He would not have looked out of place in the Under-21s game against Crystal Palace two weeks ago. God knows they could have done with him, so depleted were their resources.

He was also in demand in the Watford FC training ground staff games, first introduced in Germany. The action makes for compelling and competitive viewing and it’s no wonder Kewell, who turns 37 later this month, was incentivised to join the head coach’s team.

“I started on the Academy team but then two players dropped out and I got bought for the manager’s team,” Kewell said. The price? “A cup of a coffee and I moved across. I jumped ship, just like that.”

You can’t blame Quique Sanchez Flores. He was a right-back with Real Madrid and was capped by Spain but, at the age of 50, he does not want Kewell skinning him in training.

“He’s still fit,” said Sanchez Flores. “It’s great to play with him after training like this.”

Kewell last played a competitive match nearly 16 months ago, for Melbourne Heat against Western Sydney Warriors in the A-League. It was no way to prepare for an in-house game against Quique and Co.

“We played two 20 minute games but my lungs were burning,” he said. “I keep fit but you can be as fit as you like – trying to run and pass a ball [is another matter]. It took me about half an hour to recover. My head was burning and I had to have a cold shower.”

Kewell needed a stiff drink when he walked into the canteen at the London Colney training ground early last month to find England were 95-2 on day one of the fourth Test at Trent Bridge. Not bad, he thought, until Dean Austin broke the news to him that Australia had already been in and out, rolled over for 60 inside 19 overs. His face was a picture of incredulity.

The club’s Under-21 players must have been similarly shocked when they were told Kewell was going to be their new manager. ‘What, Harry Kewell? As in, the Harry Kewell who carried Leeds United to the semi final of the Champions League and the one who won the Champions League and the FA Cup with Liverpool? The Harry Kewell who, at one stage, many believe had the edge over Ryan Giggs as the league’s best winger in the early noughties?’ Yep. That’s the one. He is your new coach and now works alongside Alec Chamberlain who he stuck one past in Leeds’ 2-1 win over Watford at Vicarage Road in 1999. It’s funny how things turn out.

“I am really happy with Harry because he wants to learn and is always in contact with us asking for information,” said Sanchez Flores. “To have Harry Kewell is very good news.”

Kewell must have questioned whether swapping Melbourne for Islington, where his actress wife was born, was such a good idea when the rain was lashing down at Tooting & Mitcham FC and his hugely inexperienced U21 side were swept away, 6-1, by Palace. And this was on the back of a 3-1 defeat at home to Hull City and a three-goal defeat at Maidenhead United. To his immense credit, he’s fronted up afterwards on every occasion and not been afraid of calling it how he sees it.

“It’s going to be test,” said Kewell. “I’m going to be pushed. I’ve never been shy of a challenge. I want to become a manager but that’s if I’m any good. You’ve got to start somewhere. If you want to be best you’ve got to challenge the best and there is no better place than the Premier League to do that. If you make your name here then the world is your oyster.”

Kewell certainly made a name for himself during a 12-year spell in English football, so much so that Paul Robinson, the former England and Leeds keeper, named in him in the best XI players he played alongside in Sky Sports Fantasy Football Club on Friday. But great players, as John Barnes, Diego Maradona and Paul Gascoigne will testify, do not necessarily always make for great managers. Yet Kewell at least has the benefit of being able to call on the information he gleaned from working under some of the game’s most tactically astute coaches.

“George Graham was a general and when he walked into the dressing room everyone would shut up,” said Kewell about his first boss at Leeds. “The way Gerard Houllier talked about football was fantastic and I enjoyed playing under him [at Liverpool]. Benitez is very tactical and had a structure. If you stepped out of that he didn’t like it. For 90 per cent of the time you had to do exactly what he wanted. He knows how to win games and win things. Sometimes he doesn’t play fluid football but he knows how to win. Hiddink is probably one of the best. He understood what the Australian mentality is and knew all he had to work on was the defensive side of it. We ran wild up front but then when we lost it we knew how to get back into it.”

But the best, the one who left the biggest impression on the flying winger?

“Frank Rijkaard. The way he saw football blew my mind away. I felt like I could see things in football but he used to stop training games and I used to think, ‘What are you stopping it for’. He would say, ‘Well what about this and what about that’. I had to sit back and go ‘wow’. The way he sees it and trains [means] he was the best.”

But what about David O’Leary, the manager of Leeds during four years of madcap spending at Elland Road?

“No comment,” said Kewell. He thought about expanding on his answer but decided against it. He must, however, have been talking about the Irishman when discussing the daunting prospect of addressing a squad of players.

“I don’t care who you are but you can’t stand up in front of 30 professional players and start dictating to them straight away,” Kewell said. “You get one chance to make your first impression and that impression lasts forever. I’ve seen coaches that don’t impress me. Trust me.”

Kewell expanded his coaching knowledge on a summer Uefa A license course also attended by Watford legend Paul Robinson. His philosophy is pretty simple.

“It’s not how hard you hit, it’s how hard you get hit and how quickly you get back up,” he said. “That’s how I live and that’s how I’m going to live my managing career. I teach individual skill as that’s how I got taught.”

He is hoping to inspire a generation of Socceroos with his Harry Kewell Academy and has held more than 60 training sessions with kids across Australia.

“All my Academies are working on the basics,” he said. “Most kids in Australia will strike the ball with the inside of the foot and not their laces. It’s just teaching them the basic things you need to have a player. I’ll get over there when I can but I’ve got good coaches over there who know my idea of what I’m looking for. If any of the players are good enough, I can introduce them to Watford and get them to look at these up and coming players.”

What about his 14-year-old son Taylor? Is he showing signs of following in his father’s footsteps?

“Taylor can play all sports,” Kewell said. “He was surfing the other day for the first time and he just got up and did it. We throw our kids into all sports in Australia. Taylor can play cricket, is a great swimmer, plays pool, rugby, AFL and football. That’s all good handball co-ordination. Is he great at one? No. But he can play them all.”

Watch #watfordfc U21s v Sheff Utd at Vicarage Road this Monday 7pm. Free entry for ST holders: http://t.co/NhPRD3WO6J pic.twitter.com/F530KWe4GT — Watford FC (@WatfordFC) September 4, 2015

More Watford related news