Trolls, trials and titles: How Victory’s Robbie Kruse rises above the hate

Which is all very odd, because four straight Socceroos coaches have started him in huge games.

Osieck, Postecoglou, van Marwijk, Arnold. Can they all be oblivious?

Yes, the internet hero sneers. With a ‘How Did It Get There’ meme – picturing a standing horse stuck in a fence next to Kruse in a Socceroos shirt – to boot.

But to the bewilderment of that same internet hero, Kruse is still going as a professional footballer.

Not for the Socceroos, who he represented 75 times, but a club whose expectations have drifted back into this stratosphere after a period of wretched discontent.

Melbourne Victory have been horrible for two seasons now. So in the off-season, they hired their very own Winston Wolf in Tony Popovic; the A League version of Pulp Fiction’s Mr Fix It.

As Popovic took command of Victory and began plotting their revival, Kruse’s marquee money contract was expiring following two-injury riddled seasons.

And in the same manner as the four Socceroos coaches above, Popovic arrived at the same conclusion. He needed Robbie Kruse.

So how did we get here?

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“In my eyes, it’s been really successful,” Kruse says when asked to evaluate his career, without a hint of boast or bluster.

Along with those 75 caps for the Socceroos, eight years were spent in Germany, which included four seasons playing in the Champions League with Bayer Leverkusen.

The skinniest of skinny kids has come a long way from the northern suburbs of Brisbane, where his family “didn’t grow up with a lot of money, but had a lot of love”.

Night shifts were worked and the Kruse family home was refinanced to help pay for young Robbie’s rise through the ranks, but as he became a man, his undeniable promise threatened to go forever unfulfilled.

Bursting onto the scene as a teenager with Queensland Roar, Kruse was lured by the Saturday night lights of Fortitude Valley and Sunday arvo sessions at the Normanby, Brisbane’s weekend delight for those who want to blow off some steam. Kruse’s well-documented off-field incidents only left the Roar steaming, and he was eventually sacked after one punch-up too many in 2009.

“I was struggling a lot, just a typical kid, getting caught up in other things, not focusing on football,” Kruse says.

“I was really close to being another labourer on the side of the road.

“When I started to get bigger and bigger in Brisbane, I didn’t really know how to be professional and what to do.”

Fortunately Kruse’s close circle did, stepping in with a footballing intervention.

Archie Thompson was a club legend at Victory when his agent John Grimaud called in 2009 regarding Kruse, who he also looked after.

‘Get him to where you are’, was the instruction.

Put simply, Kruse had to get as far away from his lifestyle in Brisbane as possible and surround himself with players who knew how to extract the best from themselves. He turned down other better offers to join Victory on minimum wage, and immediately, Thompson the club legend saw something special.

“He’s a f--king good kid!” Thompson says with typical enthusiasm.

“People have a perception of people, look at them and think that their shit doesn’t stink. For so many it’s not true, and it’s so not true when it comes to Robbie.

“From the start (at Victory), every day was an improvement.

“Football became an obsession for him to get to level. I could see straight away this kid’s quality was the best I’d seen in a long time. “

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One thing usually leads to another in football. Right place, right time, mixed with the right talent, and it can all fall into place.

Following two seasons of dynamic form for Victory, things fell nicely when then-Socceroos boss Holger Osieck picked Kruse for the 2011 Asian Cup.

Just as he had at Victory, Kruse found himself in the perfect environment to learn from genuine legends of Australian football.

“That very first camp when I went in, I used to see Mark Schwarzer at meals,” Kruse says.

“He was 36, eating a 500g steak for every breakfast. [I was] gobsmacked. Not that nice to sit there looking at a steak at 8am, but that’s part of the reason why he had such a successful career.

“He’s playing into his forties, I just looked at his body and I was just a little skinny kid with a little pouch of fat!

“I’d never known what to do, but I picked up little things from Schwarzy, Timmy [Cahill], Harry [Kewell], Lucas [Neil], Brett [Emerton]. They were all very meticulous in how they prepared, and I took it all on.”

From that point, Kruse knew what it took to become a professional footballer.

And he’d soon learn what else comes with talent – expectation.

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By early 2014, Kruse’s career was altered again, this time by the dumbest of dumb luck.

He was flying at Bayer Leverkusen, a huge German club mixing it with the best in Europe and challenging for the Bundesliga title.

Kruse’s mix of stamina, speed and intelligence with his movement, which in an attacking sense opens up so many possibilities for teammates, was proving a valuable commodity.

Until it all came to a shuddering halt one cold January day. Kruse was done training, but others were doing some extra one-on-one drills, which, for a bit of a laugh, Kruse joined in as a defender. See if he could stop a mate, and give him crap about it.

“We turned and collided knees slightly,” Kruse recalls.

“I thought it was nothing and went home, came back the next day and couldn’t really walk. Couldn’t change direction.”

His ACL was done. So too his season and dreams of going to the 2014 World Cup, where he was shaping as Ange Postecoglou’s main attacking weapon.

“You give yourself the best chance… but in the end it’s just luck,” Kruse says.

“Before that knee I had a lot of interest in me as well, I had just moved to Leverkusen and had a bit of interest in England. I was planning on going to the World Cup at the peak of my powers… obviously it was devastating.

“From there it was a slippery slope for me in terms of injury.”

That slope saw his heel explode an hour into Australia’s 2015 Asian Cup final triumph. Kruse shouldn’t have been playing. He had carried a nagging foot problem into the game. His foot then unravelled, ligaments torn to bits as he battled with the Koreans.

A yellow card for diving was the least of his worries; the injury scuppered a long-term deal with Stuttgart in Germany.

The injuries mounted. In all, five major surgeries cost Kruse roughly two full seasons of football. His powers diminished, but every time the national team needed him, he fronted up, despite the obvious dangers to his club career.

None of which mattered much at the 2018 World Cup.

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As the Socceroos struggled in Russia, Kruse became an online punching bag. It was vicious. Memes, Facebook groups, Twitter bile. After sitting out 2014, Kruse’s parents were finally able to watch their son – who they had sacrificed so much for – represent his country at a World Cup. The fierce backlash left them in tears. Angry. Mystified.

Kruse was the same. It smashed him between the eyes between games, where he became a one-man target after frustrating team performances against France and Denmark. These were games in which the Socceroos were close enough, but not quite good enough under the conservative approach adopted by manager Bert van Marwijk.

“Being at Bayer Leverkusen, you grow a thick skin because you have to,” Kruse says of the noise from the outer.

“You don’t expect it so much from your own fans representing your country.

“I understand this is the world we live in with social media, but you see the dribble, just the way the world is going. Your mother and father never want to read that about their kids.

“Being a parent now, if I was reading that about my son I’d be distraught, devastated.”

Archie Thompson has walked in Kruse’s shoes, though not to the extent Kruse copped in 2018.

“No one goes out to have a shit game,” Thompson says.

“He was always a target for [abuse] and I just don’t know why. No one sees the work he does off the ball, dragging (defenders) out of position. Selfless. Allowing space for teammates.

Thompson pauses, trying to find a reason why the pile-on grew and grew.

“For the life of me man, I’m still baffled,” he finally adds.

“When the pressure is on in games, it is so easy to go inward. I’ve done it. You have moments when you’re not confident and you try to blend in out there. Robbie on the flip side, he’d always want to get the ball. He’s just trying to do the best he can at what he’s good at.”

Kruse doesn’t carry any anger from that period with him. He knows the people who know – coaches, teammates – will always be the ones worth listening to.

More by way of general observation, he says, “I understand critiquing performance, but it got completely out of hand. You can’t control it though, can you?”

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Kruse is now in an environment where little is left to chance. Anything that can be controlled, is.

That’s how Tony Popovic rolls.

“He does not miss a thing, the detail is incredible,” Kruse says. Having heard the stories about Popovic’s meticulous teachings, he now believes them.

“From the way your feet are pointing as a defender, to pre-season training and the work we put in. A lot of teams have struggled to go with us until the 95th minute, we’ve got more in the locker.”

Which is a far cry from the last few seasons, when the so-called biggest club in the land had a men’s side who struggled with the bare requirements of performing like a professional outfit.

A first-ever wooden spoon was the justified return last season, which included two derby defeats by Melbourne City of 6-0 and 7-0. Stephen King couldn’t have written a scarier script.

“I came back two years ago, and it kind of went to crap…” Kruse says, having been 33, out-of-contract and able to leave Victory in July.

There was interest elsewhere, but once Popovic decided he was in his plans, Kruse knew there was only one choice to make.

“Obviously I fell into a lot of trouble when I was younger, and Melbourne Victory gave me a chance,” he says.

“It’s the only club I’ve really known here in Australia. I love Victory, love the fan base and love what the club is about.

“I didn’t stay for financial reasons, just purely to play my part to help get the club back to where it should be.

“The vibe at the club is just totally different to where it was, and I’m really happy I decided to stay.”

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And so to round four in this year’s A League Men’s. Around 9pm on a Saturday night, and Coopers Stadium is heaving.

Adelaide United have just equalised against their despised rivals, Victory. For the Reds, there’s nothing like beating the navy blue from the capital of Victoria.

Kruse has only just entered the game. Popovic has preferred to use him as a late impact sub in the first month of the season. This is a usual play. Limited minutes early to players who can win games all season. Popovic needs Kruse all season.

But on this particular Saturday, he needed him to find a solution against the resurgent Reds.

And in the 78th minute, Kruse senses a chance. Refreshed after his first full off-season with no injury concerns in seven years, the instincts so highly regarded by multiple Socceroos coaches, and their elite European counterparts, come to the fore.

Kruse takes off down the left flank as if fired from a gun, to an area of open space and opportunity.

Balancing himself at top speed, and after one quick glance to pick where he will cause havoc, Kruse delivers a perfect left-foot cross into the path of Nishan Velupillay. Victory 2-1. Game won.

Kruse watches the tap-in from where he ended his run, right in front of Victory’s away fans, setting off a 1000-strong mass of mayhem and delirium.

Kruse stares, arms outstretched, and celebrate with them. And in turn, he gets nothing but love back.