22 games, 11 goals, 10 assists: Adelaide United captain Craig Goodwin is putting together one of the great individual Isuzu UTE A-League campaigns in 2022-23.
And he’s doing it all whilst managing an injury that “can be so severe, it can end careers.”
Goodwin scored his 11th goal of the season in Adelaide’s 1-1 draw with Sydney FC at Coopers Stadium on Friday evening. It was the opening goal which, in front of a sell-out home crowd, looked set to lift Adelaide to a fifth-consecutive win, and to within striking distance of league-leaders Melbourne City.
It wasn’t to be; Sydney struck back through Adam Le Fondre to frustrate the second-placed Reds who, despite dropping two points at home, can take some solace from the fact their unbeaten run has stretched out to 12 games.
In the aftermath of the 1-1 draw, Goodwin explained how osteitis pubis – an injury he first succumbed at the back end of last season – has inflamed since his recent stint on international duty with the Socceroos.
It’s the injury that almost robbed Goodwin his chance of making Socceroos squad for the Qatar World Cup in late 2022, and prevented him from engaging in pre-season duties with Adelaide until a week before the start of the current A-League Men campaign.
“To be honest, I’m a bit sore,” Goodwin said. “Probably a little bit from that Marvel (Stadium) pitch.”
Goodwin played 78 minutes of the Socceroos’ clash with Ecuador at the Melbourne venue last month, just days after starting against the same opponents at Commbank Stadium in Sydney.
“With the cricket pitch in the middle (of Marvel Stadium) it was very hard and then soft in the other areas, so it’s put a lot of stress on my (osteitis pubis),” he added.
“That’s a part of football. But it would be nice if the pitches were a bit cleaner going into those matches.”
Watching on from the Paramount+ post-game studio was commentator and analyst Andy Harper, who was stunned by Goodwin’s management of the groin injury whilst playing his way into Johnny Warren Medal favouritism over a blistering campaign.
“Pre-game that’s why I was hesitant to label (the injury), I didn’t know what the situation was,” Harper said.
“I can’t believe he plays week in, week out with that condition.
“I know there are various degrees of it… it’s so debilitating. For some players it’s career-ending. It can be so severe it can end player’s careers. Yet he’s bounced out for a year at international level, World Cup level, and you wouldn’t notice him having it on a weekly basis.”
In mid-season, Goodwin joined SEN’s The Global Game to paint a picture of the World Cup doubts that formed whilst managing the groin injury in the off-season.
“It was super stressful through that period,” he said. “There (were) times I would be sitting in silence on the couch going, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen here, I think I’m screwed’.”
He added: “I didn’t even lace up the boots until one week out from the season against Wellington… I was probably very underdone in terms of that aspect… thankfully it worked and it’s easy to say that World Cup was probably the highlight of my career.”
Goodwin’s health, and the Socceroos’ use of the Reds winger in last month’s international camp, was a point of frustration for Adelaide head coach Carl Veart in the lead-up to Friday’s Sydney FC clash.
In midweek, Veart questioned whether Goodwin, who scored a famous World Cup goal for Australia against France in Qatar, needed to play a total of 147 minutes across the two Ecuador fixtures considering his injury status.
“Craig had a very high load with the Socceroos playing those two games (against Ecuador) with a short turnaround,” Veart said.
“It was maybe a little bit surprising that he played so much in the two games considering the injury that he has been nursing before the World Cup.
“It’s an injury that is still there, that we can’t really take care of until the end of this season – he needs that break.
“We have to be very careful with him now for the next few weeks.”
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