WHEN Socceroos hero Tim Cahill was playing for Sydney’s Kingsgrove North High School in the mid-90s, his coach, Marco Zammarrelli, gave him free rein.

“I used to just say to him, `do your thing’,” Mr Zammarrelli, the school’s sports master, said yesterday. “He could sniff a goal from anywhere. Even at school level, he always knew where the net was, he could always score a goal.

“Tim wasn’t a big guy, but very athletic, very fit, strong on the ball. It was very difficult to get the ball off him.”

Mr Zammarrelli’s formula — and Cahill’s talent — took Kingsgrove North to the 1995 state indoor soccer school championship.

More than a decade later, Cahill’s skills were used to stunning effect by national coach Guus Hiddink at the World Cup in Germany yesterday.

Cahill, a 52-minute substitute, slotted home Australia’s equaliser with just six minutes of normal time remaining and another goal four minutes later in the 3-1 Group F win over Japan at the Fritz Walter Stadium in Kaiserslautern.

Despite Australia struggling to make a breakthrough for much of the match, Cahill’s father, Tim Sr, never lost faith.

“I saw it coming,” Cahill senior said of his son’s second goal that put Australia in front. “Tim was angling himself to the right, he was setting himself up. Then he hit it and it was in the net. It took my breath away.”

Still, he was surprised his son had shot from outside the box because he is not known for scoring from such distances.

“He’s got it (the ability to shoot from long distance) but he doesn’t use it much,” he said. “He is more of a poacher. He gets in and around the six-yard area.”

Mr Cahill, an Englishman, said he was able to remain calm amid the hullabaloo surrounding his son’s goals, “but my wife (Samoan- born Sisifo) and Rebecca (Tim’s wife) were very happy”. He added: “I’ll start getting excited when we win another game.”

Mr Cahill said he never questioned the coach’s decision to use Cahill as a substitute. Cahill had been expected to be in the starting XI, but Hiddink produced a shock by leaving him on the bench.

“It’s up to the coach, it’s his call,” he said. “He had his reasons and you can’t doubt them. That’s what makes him one of the best in the world.

“He is a great coach, someone out of the old school.”

Mr Zammarrelli said the Cahills should be proud of their son’s legacy at Kingsgrove North.

He said Cahill had been a role model for the students — polite, hard-working and interested in others. “He was a friendly, hard- working kid. He wasn’t highly academic but he tried hard, he would give anything a go.”

School captain Sherie Jreige, 17, said Cahill’s triumph had lifted the school’s spirits. “It gives the kids hope that they can succeed, that they can get there one day, that it is realistic,” she said.

But it was at sport, and soccer in particular, that Cahill was a standout.

“In sports assembly, we always talk about passion, spirit, fair play and hard work — and Tim is a perfect example of that,” Mr Zammarrelli said.

“He had more than potential — he had passion and self-belief, the drive to achieve his goals.”

Nicholas Parmagos, 13, said he loved soccer and said Cahill’s success showed that “anyone can do it”.

“It gives us hope,” he said. “He is a role model for us. If he can succeed then it is possible for all of us.”