Verbeek praises the “special qualities” of captain Kewell

Australia manager Pim Verbeek praised Liverpool winger Harry Kewell ahead of their World Cup qualifier with Iraq.

“Harry’s a fantastic player,” said the Dutchman. “The Harry Kewell I’ve seen in these two weeks is 100 percent better than the one in Singapore. At that time, he was struggling a little bit both mentally and physically.

“He’s fit and ready, he’s very good in the group. He’s trained every training session from the first to the last minute. He wants to show what he can do.

“He’s as important as all the other players, but he has special qualities. He has to use his special qualities and the rest of the team has to make sure he can use his special qualities.

If they have everything, they will all play to the best of their ability. Harry has special qualities and my job is to create a team where we all can use our special qualities and hide our weaknesses.”

Liverpool fans won’t be familiar with seeing these special qualities. The last couple years have been blighted by major and frequent injuries for Kewell. Offered a contract extension this season at reduced wages, Kewell turned it down and will leave the club he claims to have supported as a boy at the end of June.

He has had much better luck taking the pitch for his country, however, and was named captain two months ago.

“It’s a big responsibility,” said Verbeek. “I’m a lucky man, I have a lot of experienced players available to lead this team, Vince Grella, Brett Emerton, Mark Schwarzer. Harry is doing very well. And I’m not the sort of person to change things around, Harry’s the captain tomorrow.”

Source: Goal.com