1. From little things big things grow

There is a pretty simple reason why Tim Cahill is so beloved of football fans in Australia - it’s that every time (almost) he pulls on a national team shirt he scores goals. They’re game-changing goals, game-saving goals, credibility-restoring goals; screaming headers and miracle match-winners that lift you off the sofa in ecstasy and make you punch the air in joy. Australia’s been blessed with players of greater trickery, skill and flair but none who’ve timed their runs so well as Cahill across three World Cup campaigns and a distinguished top-flight club career.

Possessing an extraordinary aerial ability for a player of such urchin dimensions (5’10” and 71kg dripping wet), Cahill practically defines the cliche of ‘playing taller’. When he leaps into the air and nods home goals for the Socceroos, Australia seems to grow a foot taller with him.

Perhaps everything just aligned perfectly for Cahill to capture the hearts of even the most steadfast agnostics in this soccer-confused nation; his rise to prominence at Everton coincided perfectly with unprecedented levels interest in English football down under, dovetailing Australia’s surge back into the big-time of World Cup football upon qualification for Germany 2006. Cahill was having the definitive ‘career year’ by that stage – nominated for the Ballon D’or and then scoring Australia’s first ever World Cup goal. And the second too, if you don’t mind.

There’s no hidden magic with Cahill. His game is built on the solid bedrock of hard work and application. Maybe there’s also something to be said for the way his up-tempo, no frills attack on the ball links the lovers of Australia’s other football codes together in mutual appreciation of the Socceroos. In lieu of a national style of play the quality of Total Football or Tiki-taka, it’s Cahill’s straight-laced work ethic and clear-eyed attack on the ball that binds together the best of Australia’s disparate football influences. It’s attitude in place of style and borne more out of application than philosophy.

For a player whose spirit-lifting goals and moments of sheer inspiration have united in joy a soccer nation often so muddled and confused, it’s fitting enough that Tim Cahill’s rise to national prominence in Australia was far from conventional. Cahill is the son of a Samoan mother who knew well the dangers of the rugby field and thus forbade her son playing that game, and a soccer-loving English father. It was the latter who had no problem edging young Cahill towards the round-ball game, and at parks around Sydney competition between Tim Cahill Sr and his three sons was fierce.

Tim Jr was playing club soccer by the age of six and would get so nervous and anxious that he’d be in tears before matches even started. Cahill’s brother Chris would go on to represent Samoa, even captaining their national team and scoring in multiple qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup. In a family dripping with sporting talent, Cahill’s cousins include NRL and New Zealand national team rugby league star Ben Roberts and All Blacks Joe and Jeremy Stanley.

2. Rites of passage – the move to Europe

Like any young Australian player worth his salt in the late 90s, Cahill packed his bags for Europe at the first opportunity, eventually heading to Milwall on a free transfer from Sydney United in 1997. That journey was far from straightforward though, with Cahill’s parents borrowing money to pay his fare over to the UK in the hope that he’d come good on his promise to make football his career.

By May 1998 Cahill had won a debut at Millwall, and he’d represent the club in 217 league outings for 52 goals until 2004. In that spell Cahill was a pivotal part of the club’s ascent to the uncharted territory of an FA Cup final, launching them into the decider with a semi-final goal against Sunderland. That goal was a scorching volley that sparked a pitch-length celebratory sprint down the wing at Old Trafford. Less memorable was the 3-0 humbling at the hands of Manchester United in the final. After 249 appearances, that was the end of Cahill’s time at Millwall as the Premier League beckoned.

The dye was set for Cahill’s career once he’d moved on from Milwall. For club and country he’d offer unwavering loyalty and professionalism; a consummate teammate who never slackened from the work ethic that got him there to begin with. Cahill’s never forgotten how hard his parents worked to provide for him and his sibilings, moving from rental home to rental home but providing him with the credo he’s lived by. “I always want to be of value to a football club or to a league and to be an ambassador and a representative that leaves legacies,” he told ESPN recently.

3. Cahill at Everton

Though his form of late shows he’s not just jetted off to the MLS for a cushy superannuation top-up, when it comes to club football Cahill is rightly celebrated for his time under David Moyes at Everton. In 226 league appearances across eight seasons at Goodison Park, Cahill burrowed his way into the hearts of the Everton faithful with vital goals and match-turning moments that vaulted him to the status of fan favourite. Three times he scored in Merseyside derbies at Anfield (and five times all up – a post-war record) and by the time he was done, his £1.5 million transfer from Millwall looked like the steal of the decade.

Just like he’s done for Australia, Cahill conjured moments of brilliance when they were needed most. He’d score 56 goals in Premier League action and 68 in total for the club. Twenty-one Premier League goals came from Cahill’s head, second only to the skycraping Peter Crouch in that time. At Cahill’s height you just don’t score that many goals from headers without an unwavering work ethic, a ruthless streak of competitiveness - and an immense vertical leap.

“I head a ball like someone [else] kicks a ball,” said Cahill once said quite matter of factly. The ingredients to that success are not elusive but they’re also not often replicated by others. Cahill trains hard, gets in the right position, times his runs expertly and he hard work on the training track has given him remarkable accuracy when he does hit one.

Trying to rank Cahill’s goals for Everton is a subjective call but any list would have to include the bicycle kick against Chelsea, the 2004/05 effort that virtually sealed a Champions League place for his side with a 2-0 win against Newcastle and the last-minute Merseyside derby equaliser at Anfield in January 2009, which not only stole a point but kept the Reds out of top spot. The goal itself was a quite remarkable reflex header from Mikel Arteta’s bullet-fast cross.

4. World Cup 2006 – a miracle at Kaiserslautern

Of all the “where were you when…?” moments in Australian sport, not many can compete for sheer euphoria with Australia’s come-from-behind win against Japan at Kaiserslautern during the 2006 World Cup. Down a goal with only six minutes remaining, the Socceroos were buoyed by Cahill’s madly scrambled 84th minute goal – the nation’s first in World Cup finals history – and then sent into delirium five minutes later when he had a searing right foot shot bouncing off the left upright and back into the net to ensure victory for the Aussies.

“Tim Cahill has done it again!” screamed SBS’s Simon Hill. “What a goal by Tim Cahill! 2-1 Australia. Oh it’s a wonderful moment in Kaiserslautern. Tim Cahill has come off the bench and maybe won the match for the Socceroos. Magical stuff! It’s a wonder strike by the wonderboy of Australian football.” With an injury-time strike from qualifying hero John Aloisi, Australia was just rubbing salt into the wounds of the Japanese and sealed one of the most dramatic, spirit-lifting wins in World Cup history. Those three goals had come in seven minutes of pandemonium.

As the second-lowest ranked qualifier for the tournament, there was little expectation of the Socceroos getting out of the group stages but with that win against Japan and a gallant 2-2 draw with Croatia, they propelled themselves to the knockout stage, where they were infamously and cruelly ousted by eventual champions Italy.

5. The road less travelled

Is it a bit sappy to note that Tim Cahill is a wholehearted and genuine contributor to youth soccer and various charities in a professional world increasingly less likely to stay in touch with the troubles of the little people? Maybe, but there’s no faking it for the cameras when it comes to Cahill’s charitable work.

Cahill’s alertness in the six-yard box has always been matched by a keen awareness of his responsibilities as a national team representative and an ambassador for the game. “When you’re loyal and people respect you, you’ve got friends for life… It’s a strong trait that I’ve got from my family but something that I’m really proud of and trying to bring to New York as well.”

It’s a rare sportsperson who actively attempts to leave the game in a better place than when they started, but that’s what Cahill is doing through the youth academies to which he lends his name, time and money. Cahill has also committed to being a part of the solution to bringing on Australia’s next generation of junior talent, doing work at grassroots level for which the Socceroos might one day see more benefits.

Cahill’s a little off the radar in a club football sense now, of course, but he’s been no slouch in the MLS during the past two seasons with New York Red Bulls, making the MLS team of the season in his first year in the competition and scoring the fastest goal in league history, a quite ridiculous volley only seven seconds into his side’s October 2013 clash with Houston Dynamo. All this has led to the inevitable chorus of demand for Cahill to find a way home to turn out in the A League during these twilight years of his professional career. Of all the marquee signings that could be found, surely none would be more genuine in the determination to further the cause of the game in Australia than Cahill.

I think I might just go and crack a Red Bull myself…

6. World Cup 2010 and 2014

Is Tim Cahill Australia’s greatest ever footballer? He’s definitely in the conversation and when it comes to consistency and continuity of performance for the national side doubly so. Even at 34, he’s still the talismanic figure of the side and a man who has not only survived, but thrived well into the twilight years of his career. “If we’re talking about Australia’s greatest right now,” said Mark Bosnich this week, “it has to be Tim Cahill. You can’t beat anyone who has scored goals at the last three World Cups.”

Cahill himself admitted that staying in the Premier League and watching his game-time dwindle would have spelled the end of his career in national colours and he wasn’t going to let that happen, so off to the MLS he went. “If I had’ve stayed in the Premier League I would have had to retire from international football,” he told ESPN. “I had to go to a competitive league that still got me playing at a level that got me to another World Cup.”

The 2010 World Cup had been inglorious for the Socceroos and they failed to progress past the group stages after being hammered 4-0 by Germany and fighting out a 1-1 draw with Ghana, but Cahill did manage to score in the consolation win over Serbia and also managed to spark the game’s greatest moment of controversy when the referee ignored his handball in the Serbian box, denying the latter a place in the knockout stages.

Entering Brazil 2014 as one of only three Aussies to make the final squad for all three World Cup campaigns since the breakthrough appearance in 2006, it was no real surprise it was Cahill’s goal that capped a spirited comeback from the Aussies after they’d gone down a pair of goals in the opening 15 minutes against Chile. The counter-punch was vintage Cahill, drifting in towards the six-yard box and meeting the cross with power and precision to give Socceroos fans reason for hope. How he’ll be missed when Australia can no longer rely on that unwavering consistency.

Maybe it’s a foolish dream to think the Socceroos can pull of the impossible against the Netherlands on Thursday morning, but it’s likely to be Cahill who gives them the greatest chance of an upset. “We have to be careful,” said Dutchman Nigel de Jong of the Aussie veteran. “His timing for the ball with his headers is one of the best I’ve seen from all players around the world, so we have to defend that very well.”

With Cahill more than any other member of the Socceroos squad, at the very least you know what you’re going to get. “We’re Australians,” he said before the tournament. “We’re going to throw the kitchen sink at them.”