Cooma Tigers coach Gaby Wilk catches up with his former teammate, Diego Maradona, before Argentina's 1993 World Cup qualifier against Australia in Sydney. Unlike all those previous occasions, this year was the first time the Tigers did it during pre-season. And according to coach Gabriel Wilk, it's half the reason why they're currently top of the ACT NPL - and why they're bullish about their chances against Hume City, their Victorian opponents in the cup. Wilk is the man who made it happen. A former professional player, he was good enough to make the train-on squad for Argentina at the 1979 FIFA Youth Championship - the tournament where a certain Diego Maradona announced his arrival to the world. Wilk was lured to Australia in 1983 by Inter Monaro to play in the NSW Super League. Like so many foreign players who come to these shores, he never left. "This is the best country," Wilk told the Herald. After stints with Uruguay Penrith, Granville Chile and Canberra Juventus, Wilk - now 58 - hung up his boots and moved into coaching. Until last year, he also ran a takeaway shop in Canberra. Since 2004, he's been with the Tigers, a club which has captured his heart and soul.

Cooma Tigers players lift coach Gaby Wilk into the air after winning the 2006 ACT League grand final. Credit:Kate Leith Like the town, the Cooma Tigers have always been a multicultural melting pot - they were founded in 1952 by the migrant workers of the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme. "It's a beautiful club. You can mix with everyone," Wilk said. "It's my house, you know." Wilk's connections made their month-long trip to Argentina a reality. "He's the most passionate football person you would ever meet - he lives and breathes it, like a typical South American," said Mick Klima, the club's major financial backer and a former Tigers player who these days owns and runs two ski shops - one here, one in Japan. "So when you go to South America with him ... we were walking down the streets of Buenos Aires and he'd just know everybody and everybody knew him. Because of Gaby's contacts, it allowed us to get into places that I don't think anyone else would be allowed to - into first division change rooms, meeting coaches. I don't think the players realise how lucky they were. It's crazy." Wilk's contacts helped cover the cost of some of their travel and accommodation. The rest was paid for by Klima and the players themselves. Throughout, they were treated like footballing royalty - received by town mayors, written about extensively in local newspapers and quizzed by curious TV stations about what football is like back in Canberra.

Loading The adventure began in Santa Fe, where the Tigers spent 12 days training at the San Jorge club, a plush facility where many top South American sides hold pre-season camps. Wilk and 10 other coaches supplied by the club whipped the players into shape, morning, noon and night. "It was eat, sleep, soccer," Wilk said. "Very, very hard work. Not many players do this. The players learned a lot they could never learn here." Then, they put it into practice with three friendlies. One was in the province of Neuquen, where a crowd of 1000 watched two local amateur teams - usually the fiercest of rivals - join forces to create a composite side that played against the Tigers. The others were against the reserve teams of two clubs from the country's Primera Division - Rosario Central and, of course, Independiente. Two days after a league clash with River Plate, El Rojo were taking on Cooma in a 45-minute scratch match at their training base. They rolled out a handful of first-team players, including two established internationals - Uruguayan defender Gaston Silva, and Chilean midfielder Francisco Silva, who were both unused substitutes against River.