Aaron Mooy ran rings around Rangers at Hampden Park on Sunday.
But Celtic’s Viaplay Cup Final hero was contemplating hanging up his boots for good just eight months ago – until a transformational 10-day training stint at the Ibrox club’s Auchenhowie HQ. Having quit his club in China during the pandemic, Mooy was given special access to the facility on the outskirts of Milngavie last summer in order to throw the kitchen sink at one last chance to turn his career around at the World Cup in Qatar.
One month later Mooy had not only booked his country up for a place in the winter finals – but also done enough to convince Ange Postecoglou to sign him for Celtic into the bargain. The blue iron gates of the training ground on the north side of Glasgow were opened up especially for the Aussie and Soceroos fitness guru Andrew Clark after an intervention from ex-Rangers star Craig Moore. Until Moore’s phone call, Mooy had been training alone on a public park near his Bearsden home in a bid to get fit for Australia’s play-off showdown with Peru in Qatar in June.
Clark, head of high performance with the Aussie FA, takes up the incredible story. The 48-year-old – who is also on the backroom staff with Copenhagen – told Record Sport: “I know how things work in your part of the world and I don’t want to cause any trouble for Azza!
“But, yes, it was an important time for him. During that time he considered, was football going to finish for him? Towards the end in China and afterwards, when it just wasn’t working for him, I’m sure he had those thoughts. That’s something you’d need to ask him but for him to turn that whole thing around and be back to where he is now is great for him.”
Clark was first dispatched to Europe at a time when Mooy’s world had been turned upside down. He said: “It was a difficult period for him during coronavirus as it was for people all over the world. But he was stuck in China with Shanghai and lockdowns made life pretty much impossible for him. On a performance level but also on a family level.
“So he was going through a really difficult time trying to keep his football where he wanted it to be but also with all the personal things, as everybody was. At that time, it was 21 days of quarantine for anyone entering or exiting the country and a heap of testing that he had to do. But there wasn’t even 21 days between the international windows at the end of that year. So he was stuck nowhere.
“As national team staff it’s our job to support people, not just when they are at great clubs and everything is perfect with a team of support around them. We had to say, ‘OK, who are the players that are important to us and how can we catch them when times are a little bit difficult?’.
© Getty Images Aaron Mooy of Australia
“Azza just happened to be one of those people at that time. So we spent a lot of time in Europe trying to support players in those positions. We had a qualifier in March and I came to Glasgow to do a lot of work with him on a local park near his home.
“I stayed in Glasgow during that period and we also had a few guys at Hibs so I was up and down the motorway for a few weeks. I’d say it was moderately successful in that it kept him fit enough to be able to contribute and participate.
“But it came to the crunch time in June. We didn’t manage to get direct qualification for the World Cup so had to go through a play-off against Peru in a single match in Qatar. And we threw everything at it. Part of that was me moving back to Glasgow for that period. The first part was designing a programme for Azza for weeks leading into when I arrived.
“I then turned up in Glasgow about three weeks before the Peru game and, in the first few sessions I could see he was in great shape. I was really surprised. He had been working on his own off a programme off a computer. But as soon as I saw how he was looking I phoned the national team manager to say, ‘Listen, Azza is in good shape!’.”
But Clark knew training on a public park wouldn’t whip Mooy into shape in time. Which is when former Aussie international Moore stepped in to unlock Auchenhowie.
Clark said: “Moorey helped us out, to get a better quality facility for us to train on. It involved no one else, just the two of us training together. But getting access to proper surfaces was so important as there’s only so much you can do on a public park. So to be able to do that was really important for what he needed. We were in there for about 10 days and it made such a difference.”
Clark and Mooy then flew to a camp in Dubai as the clock ticked down. He said: “About five players turned up who were stuck in the same sort of situation. Next minute you’ve got Rene Meulensteen and Graham Arnold, the head coach, looking at him and saying, ‘Yeah, we’re going to get something really good out of Mooysey here!’. Originally we thought he was going to be a bit part player.
“We thought if we could get 20 minutes out of him from the bench it might make a difference. But, very quickly, Azza was back doing what Azza does. He’s like a snake charmer. He appears to be doing things so easily on the ball that it almost feels like it’s slow until you’re out there up against him and you think, ‘I can’t get near this guy!’.
“When we started together as a team, straight away he was back wheeling us around the park. And we were thinking, ‘Maybe this guy can be more than just a bit part’.”
Mooy went on to help the Aussies squeeze past Peru and into the finals, where he would emerge as the key man in Arnold’s midfield as they stormed through the group stage before being edged out by Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the knock-out rounds.
Subsequently, Mooy’s status at Celtic has blossomed, culminating in him playing a key creative role in the two goals which secured Sunday’s win over Rangers and set the club up for a potential domestic treble.
Clark said: “I sent him a message just the other night just by chance after the Cup Final. But it’s all down to Azza and his work ethic. He’s such a great guy. It’s been quite a quirk of fate I guess but, after all the negatives he’s been through, he’s finally back again playing football at the level where he belongs.”
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