“Personally, I wasn’t satisfied with myself. He was left on the bench for Ange Postecoglou’s first game in charge, and he isn’t sure he made the best impression on the new boss in Sydney. He’s become a regular in the Socceroos squad this year, though he faces some tough competition for a starting role, namely from Crystal Palace captain Mile Jedinak and Melbourne Victory’s Mark Milligan. Still, it’s been a season which has taken Holland from the Iberian Peninsula to the Gulf of Finland, and he’s hoping it will end with a ticket to Brazil. They haven’t been quite the same without coach Peter Stöger ( who’s now working his magic at Cologne) and they may have to settle for second, at best. It was the best season I’ve ever been involved in, at any club. We only lost three or four games all season and we were winning games before we even went out there. “Then we won the championship last season and we actually broke the competition’s point record. I wasn’t really getting anywhere and I was lucky enough to get this opportunity, which I was very, very grateful for. “It was a difficult period, those three years. There, he almost faded into obscurity until Austria Vienna came knocking at the start of last year. He left Newcastle Jets as a championship-winning teenager in 2009 for the Netherlands. Yet not so long ago he wasn't getting any games at all. There are other Australians in the Champions League this season – Robbie Kruse at Bayer Leverkusen, Mitch Langerak at Borussia Dortmund and Tom Rogic at Celtic – though Holland is the only one getting a full 90 minutes. "Defensively he’s a little bit lazy, but with the ball, he’s a fantastic player." Not good enough to break down the Austrians’ defense in their first encounter though, a goal-less stalemate in St Petersburg, and Holland gets another shot against him in this week's return fixture. Is he as terrifying as he sounds? "He’s one of those players that can create something from nothing,” says Holland. He’s such an intelligent footballer” – and Zenit's incredible Brazilian, Hulk. And it gave us some street cred in the Austrian Bundesliga.”Īs their first-choice defensive midfielder, it's been a chance for Holland to take on the likes of Porto playmaker Lucho González – “one of the best No10s I’ve played against. But at the end of the day, it was a good experience for us. "Switch off for a second and you get punished. They’ve picked up a couple of points on the road, though their goal tally – one for, nine against – speaks of a side still a long way behind the likes of Atlético Madrid, who top the group. “It’s almost impossible,” he admits.įor both club and player, this has been a bittersweet campaign in the Champions League. Austria Vienna sit bottom of their Champions League group, and go into their final match, on Wednesday night against Zenit, with little more than a mathematical chance of progressing to the Europa League.
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