RoboCop happy to play enforcer if it helps keep Crystal Palace secure
Mile Jedinak always ends up as the captain. “Most of the time as a kid growing up I was captain,” he says.
The armband also kept on growing in significance. He wore it at Wembley when Crystal Palace won the Championship play-off final in 2013 to reach the Barclays Premier League for the first time in eight years. He led Palace to their great escape last season. He captained Australia in the World Cup finals last summer and captained his country to victory in the Asian Cup four weeks ago.
Does he sweet-talk his managers, beg them for the honour or drop hints?
“I never asked anybody to be captain of any football team I’ve played in,” he says in his usual emphatic, intense manner. “So given that perhaps people see the leadership qualities, you’ve got the respect of your team through your actions, through your mannerisms.”
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in football who takes the role more seriously. This is a man who watches his team-mates closely, not just on the pitch but on the training ground. This is a captain who tries to zone in on potential weakness before it has a chance to spoil the game. Jedinak is concerned, in particular, by lapses in concentration — so how does he spot them? “Maybe not in their eyes but it’s really the behaviour throughout the course of the week,” the 30-year-old says. “I have to make sure everyone’s focused. We can’t afford to go into any game with someone not at it.”
His team-mates are in the dining room next door and laughing loudly and I wonder what he does when he spies someone who is “not at it”.
“It’s a quiet word before the game, giving people instructions,” he says. “It’s positive reinforcement. You get accustomed to what players like to do and not like to do.”
Quite possibly, sometimes all he has to do is to make eye contact. Jedinak has the unnerving habit of looking me in the eye only when unimpressed with a question. When he is being expansive he looks into the distance.
All of which might build a portrait of the player as some sort of football RoboCop, but he does have a softer side. Strangely, no one, until now, had told him that while he was celebrating the defeat of South Korea in Sydney, the Palace fans had cheered his achievement before their side faced Everton. He was on the other side of the world and his team needed him — Palace lost — but still they applauded.
“It’s the first time I’m hearing it,” Jedinak, who hopes to be fit to face West Ham United tomorrow, says. “That’s special. I must mean something to them and this place means an awful lot to me. The feeling is definitely reciprocated.”
Despite the fervour of the support, Palace’s home form is poor. Jedinak says that results would have been better, though, had it not been for a lack of concentration at “key moments.”
That was also the problem in Brazil last summer. Australia were widely billed as the nation that would be most outclassed, but they went close to defeating Holland and were hugely entertaining, despite finishing bottom of their group.
“It matters that, for all the hard work we did, we didn’t get anything from it,” Jedinak says. “We performed admirably and we captured the imagination of a lot of people, but we didn’t get any points.”
Jedinak is the seventh Croat Australian to captain the “Socceroos”. His parents moved to Sydney when they were very young and he grew up fervently supporting Sydney Croatia, which became Sydney United.
“The Croatian community had built the club up from nothing,” he says. “I strived my whole junior career to play for them.”
Clubs in Australia tended to be defined by different immigrant communities. “Yes,” he says when asked if the preponderance of Croats in particular in the national side meant that football was treated as a niche sport. “It has been seen as separate, but when it came to playing for your country I don’t think it ever mattered. The players were the best at that time. Multiculturalism is what Australia is about.”
Jedinak left Sydney United aged 17 for his first professional contract with NK Varteks in Croatia. He foundered in the reserves but the hardship made him the player he is today, he argues. He was far more successful in Turkey with Gençlerbirligi.
“Once they saw I was there for the fight and rolled my sleeves up they respected me,” he says, and it is this obvious intensity that explains why he has become a Captain Fantastic in south London.
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Mile Jedinak always ends up as the captain. “Most of the time as a kid growing up I was captain,” he says.
The armband also kept on growing in significance. He wore it at Wembley when Crystal Palace won the Championship play-off final in 2013 to reach the Barclays Premier League for the first time in eight years. He led Palace to their great escape last season. He captained Australia in the World Cup finals last summer and captained his country to victory in the Asian Cup four weeks ago.
Does he sweet-talk his managers, beg them for the honour or drop hints?
“I never asked anybody to be captain of any football team I’ve played in,” he says in his usual emphatic, intense manner. “So given that perhaps people see the leadership qualities, you’ve got the respect of your team through your actions, through your mannerisms.”
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in football who takes the role more seriously. This is a man who watches his team-mates closely, not just on the pitch but on the training ground. This is a captain who tries to zone in on potential weakness before it has a chance to spoil the game. Jedinak is concerned, in particular, by lapses in concentration — so how does he spot them? “Maybe not in their eyes but it’s really the behaviour throughout the course of the week,” the 30-year-old says. “I have to make sure everyone’s focused. We can’t afford to go into any game with someone not at it.”
His team-mates are in the dining room next door and laughing loudly and I wonder what he does when he spies someone who is “not at it”.
“It’s a quiet word before the game, giving people instructions,” he says. “It’s positive reinforcement. You get accustomed to what players like to do and not like to do.”
Quite possibly, sometimes all he has to do is to make eye contact. Jedinak has the unnerving habit of looking me in the eye only when unimpressed with a question. When he is being expansive he looks into the distance.
All of which might build a portrait of the player as some sort of football RoboCop, but he does have a softer side. Strangely, no one, until now, had told him that while he was celebrating the defeat of South Korea in Sydney, the Palace fans had cheered his achievement before their side faced Everton. He was on the other side of the world and his team needed him — Palace lost — but still they applauded.
“It’s the first time I’m hearing it,” Jedinak, who hopes to be fit to face West Ham United tomorrow, says. “That’s special. I must mean something to them and this place means an awful lot to me. The feeling is definitely reciprocated.”
Despite the fervour of the support, Palace’s home form is poor. Jedinak says that results would have been better, though, had it not been for a lack of concentration at “key moments.”
That was also the problem in Brazil last summer. Australia were widely billed as the nation that would be most outclassed, but they went close to defeating Holland and were hugely entertaining, despite finishing bottom of their group.
“It matters that, for all the hard work we did, we didn’t get anything from it,” Jedinak says. “We performed admirably and we captured the imagination of a lot of people, but we didn’t get any points.”
Jedinak is the seventh Croat Australian to captain the “Socceroos”. His parents moved to Sydney when they were very young and he grew up fervently supporting Sydney Croatia, which became Sydney United.
“The Croatian community had built the club up from nothing,” he says. “I strived my whole junior career to play for them.”
Clubs in Australia tended to be defined by different immigrant communities. “Yes,” he says when asked if the preponderance of Croats in particular in the national side meant that football was treated as a niche sport. “It has been seen as separate, but when it came to playing for your country I don’t think it ever mattered. The players were the best at that time. Multiculturalism is what Australia is about.”
Jedinak left Sydney United aged 17 for his first professional contract with NK Varteks in Croatia. He foundered in the reserves but the hardship made him the player he is today, he argues. He was far more successful in Turkey with Gençlerbirligi.
“Once they saw I was there for the fight and rolled my sleeves up they respected me,” he says, and it is this obvious intensity that explains why he has become a Captain Fantastic in south London.
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