Go-to man: Australian captain Tim Cahill heads the ball away. Credit:Getty Images Need a clutch finish to rescue a desperate situation? Tim's your man Need an opening strike to calm nerves and put the team on the road to a routine victory? Ring the go-to player. Need an old head on wise shoulders to cajole, encourage and, most importantly, inspire, with critical interventions when the match is in the balance. Need you ask who you require? All these things and more Cahill offers and produces. To say that Australia would need to invent him if he didn't exist, or that if you wrote the storylines that he delivers on such a regular basis no one would believe you is now simply stating received wisdom, if not the bleeding obvious.

It's hard to think of one man in any team anywhere who makes such a difference, certainly someone of his age. Sure, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Luis Suarez and numerous other global stars do amazing things, particularly the first two. But they do so in the context of marvellous teams, alongside players of the highest quality. When Cahill produces his magic minutes (there are so many of them now they can't possibly be called magic moments) he is doing so in an ordinary (by top-level standards) team packed with players whose careers have been relatively humdrum to date. Yet he continues to shine, and at 35 there seems to be no signs of him slowing down. Age, far from wearying him, appears to inspire him as he has grasped the challenge thrown down to him by coach Ange Postecoglou to belatedly become a team leader and mentor, an elder statesman dispensing wisdom and knowledge and inspiring others through his bravura performances. Whoever could have predicted that this hyper-excited young man, fuelled by nervous energy, a manic work rate and an immense desire to make his mark, would have become such a significant force in the Australian game?

He wasn't even qualified to play for the country, as those who are new to the game might not realise, until he was 24. Having played for Samoa's under-20 team as a 14-year-old while on holiday in the land of his mother's birth he looked to be hamstrung under the then FIFA regulations, which forbade him from playing for his own country, Australia. A determined campaign ensued — in which my Fairfax colleague, Mike Cockerill, played a significant media role — to get FIFA to change its rules. The organisation eventually did, allowing players to switch nationality to a second country if they had played only at junior level for another. Cahill, and the Socceroos, were immediate beneficiaries. The then Millwall player made his debut off the bench in March 2004 against South Africa in a London friendly, and has never looked back through three World Cups and three Asian Cups, scoring goals all along the way. Inevitably they have been crucial ones: the brace against Japan in Kaiserslautern the most celebrated, the wonder volley against the Netherlands in Porto Alegre the most lauded, while others, such as his last-gasp Asian Cup equaliser against Oman in a group game in Bangkok's Rajamangala Stadium in 2007, have arrived at critical points of games.

A personal memory of Cahill goes right back to the start, to the first time he played in Australia for the Socceroos. It was an Oceania championship series of games staged in Adelaide in the winter of 2004, the matches also doubling as the Oceania World Cup qualifiers. Coach Frank Farina left Cahill out of the line-up for the opening 1-0 win against New Zealand (where the only remaining teammate from those days, Mark Bresciano, scored the goal) but then unleashed him for the next match, a 9-0 romp against Tahiti in which Cahill scored two. He bagged a hat-trick on his next start, a 6-1 win against Fiji, and has gone on with the job ever since. Back then he had the same manic commitment and immense desire that characterises his game now.

Almost every question was answered in the affirmative, with a "definitely, definitely", thrown in for added emphasis. Eleven years on and now with a place in Australia's pantheon of heroes forever guaranteed, there's only one answer to any question about Cahill's legendary status. "Definitely, definitely," as the man himself might have said. Now that Prime Minister Tony Abbott has revamped the honours list and brought back heroic titles, perhaps it's time for Australia's footballing legend to be so acclaimed: "Arise Sir Timothy". It does have a nice ring.