Kevin Muscat born in the western suburbs of Melbourne is know as one of toughest centre backs’s from Australia and was he the best from Australia in playing and managing?.
Muscat represented Millwall, Crystal Palace and more recently Melbourne Victory and representing Australia where he score a penalty to get a foot in the 2002 world cup but Australia was denied by Uruguay in the second leg and Muscat miss out on a world cup but that penalty live in the memory of many Australians.
Muscat has a decorated career which spans from his days starting at Crystal Palace in 1997 where he was apart of being promoted to the Premier league for the first time since 95. Also where he kept multiple clean sheets in that season. After his time at Palace, Muscat went on to play at Wolves where it spanned 180 appearances at the club.
In between playing in England also play for Rangers in the Scottish league where he won the treble with fellow Aussie Tony Vidmar and with the likes of now Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta which is quite amazing for a Australian.
Then after his stint in Scotland went to Millwall. Where he was made captain under player/coach and soccer legend Dennis Wise. In this season Muscat led Millwall on a FA Cup run . Where Millwall finished runner up in the 2004 fa cup final against Manchester Untied .
Unforutaley Muscat had a season ending injury in the semi final against Sunderland and miss out on that famous Fa Cup final. After that season Muscat left Millwall and came back to Australia where he played and captain Melbourne Victory for 6 successful seasons.
Muscat went on to win three titles with Melbourne victory as a player in the six seasons at Victory. He is seen by Victory diehards as a club legend and leading the club in the early years in the Aleague.
Even though his playing style was dirty and was know to play a physical style of play it help in keeping teams bot scoring and keep clean sheets.
Muscat was seen by the fans as a hard nose player even though some of the tackles that he handed out to many Strikers were dirty by the experts and referees. This included one challenge on Melbourne Heart striker Adrian Zahra which Former Socceroo Mark Bosnich said post match it is a disgrace .
But by many pandits he is regarded as a great defender to play the world game from Australia with former England international Terry Butcher stating “Every manager in the A-League would love to have Kevin, and I’m no exception”.
One famous incident that makes Muscat seem to be a bad boy is the cold shoulder that he gave at the time to a young Ashley Young who was playing for Manchester untied at the time. He was playing on Muscat in the friendly in 2011. Young stated “ Kevin Muscat said he would break my legs if I went past him,”.
One Spanish newspaper claim that Muscat is football’s dirtiest player to play the game.
Take away some of his poor tackles and red cards he was certainly a tough defender to get pass and one not to mess with. Just look at his status in Australian Football he is pioneer in managing Victory and making play a style that can be compare to his playing days hard , tough and no nonsense football.
After his playing days were over he was successor to Ange Postecoglou and took over as caretaker coach in 2012. Then in 2013 was given the full time role and manage Victory to two A’league titles and the FFA Cup in 2015 which is quite brilliant as a coach in only your second full season.
Now in 2020 is on the front foot as the first Australian coach to managed a team in Europe with Belgium side Sint-Truiden in Belgium’s top tier league. He is quite possibly the best manger from Australia right now with this move Sint-Truiden as he has the record to show this with a winning percentage at victory of 49 percent of 214 games he manage. Which is great and many people in Europe were impress by his managerial skills when he was at Victory when they were competing in the Asian Champion’s league.
Muscat is arguably one of best centre back’s and manger from Australia . From being a gritty player from the western suburbs of Melbourne to being tactical genius it creating a machine at Melbourne Victory. The record speaks for it’s self just outstanding and has to be celebrated as a legend in Australian football and a pioneer in growth of the world game in Australia.
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