It was a brutally honest answer, a straight bat to the first question thrown his way from the press pack on Tuesday morning at Melbourne Heart’s press conference unveiling their newest marquee signing.
“I was an international. I’m not anymore.”
Three long years since Orlando Engelaar last pulled on an Oranje jersey, when he narrowly missed out as Bert van Marwijk announced his Netherlands squad for the 2010 World Cup.
After 13 seasons of plying his trade in Europe, the 33-year-old finds himself on Australian shores as the latest foreign signing to give the A-League a go.
The towering midfielder isn’t exactly a global superstar like Sydney’s Alessandro del Piero, nor is he a cult favourite back home like Japanese midfielder Shinji Ono or English battering ram Emile Heskey, but he brings plenty of experience and skill to the table.
14 appearances for the Dutch national team is no mean feat, as was a sparkling performance during their Euro 2008 campaign when he played every single match alongside the likes of Edwin van der Sar and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
It might seem a significant fall from grace, or perhaps a decent career winding down, but you get the impression that Engelaar is not ready to hang up his boots and take it easy just yet.
“I just wanted something else, something different. The country really excites me, Australia and the city of Melbourne. When Melbourne Heart came, they really intrigued me with what they wanted,” he says.
“They showed me they really wanted me, made me see that I could really be important in certain areas for the other boys and bring something extra to the team. So that’s what really excited me, I just wanted to be a part of that.”
One of those boys is a familiar face – fellow countryman and former FC Twente teammate Rob Wielaert who was snapped up by Heart in June following a stint with Roda JC Kerkrade.
Engelaar reveals that the two of them had met up for dinner before his own move had been finalised, before surprising everyone present once again with a frank appraisal of whether it had influenced his decision to uproot his young family and move Down Under.
“What Robbie told me was very positive. Maybe it helped a bit, because if he had said don’t come here because it’s shit then maybe I would have had some second thoughts,” he wisecracks to chuckles around the room.
“I’d want to make the decision for myself, just the way I feel here, the way it looks and everything. That’s what 90% of my decision is based on.”
He readily admits that he doesn’t know much about the A-League bar what he has heard from a few other players, but seems determined to give it a fair go.
“It’s a totally different way of playing football, I think. I’m curious to see how well we’ll do. I’ve got a lot of responsibility in the team, I really want to help the guys so I feel responsible in doing well.
“I don’t think John [Aloisi] will ask me to score twenty goals or to do things that I’m not able to do or what I’m less good at. I think he would want me to do what I’m good at, what I’ve shown [before] so that’s what I’ll try to do here.”
For now, there’s a lot of preparation to be done on the training pitch.
“The coming weeks we’re going to work on my fitness and make me get used to the way of playing here and the tempo of the game, and everything else will come later,” he says.
“I’ve seen and heard that the players are really fit and that the games are played at a really high tempo. Maybe a little too high sometimes which doesn’t help the quality of the game, but it’s something I’ll have to get used to and I’ll pick it up soon.”
