- Aussie great played 366 games for Middlesborough
- Joined Leicester City in 2015 from Chelsea
- Retired in 2016 after a stellar career
Socceroos legend Mark Schwarzer has recalled the brutal lie which saw his time in the Premier League end on a sour note.
The year was 2015 and Schwarzer had just secured a move to Leicester City from Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea.
Foxes manager Nigel Pearson promised the veteran shot-stopper he would be given an opportunity between the sticks as first-choice gloveman Kasper Schmeichel was injured.
‘That’s why I made the decision to go to Leicester,’ he told Optus Sport.
‘Unfortunately for me, I was told a lie … I [eventually] confronted Nigel Pearson about it, which he wasn’t too pleased about.
Socceroos legend Mark Schwarzer has recalled the brutal lie which saw his time in the Premier League end on a sour note (pictured, playing for Leicester against Manchester United)
Schwarzer joined the Foxes from Chelsea, where he was the understudy to Petr Cech (left)
‘I was told two days before a game against Hull City at home that if I played well, I’d keep my spot.
‘We played well, drew 0-0, and I made a big one-on-one save at the death of the game [to earn us a point].
‘Nigel [even] said I played well, [but the] next game I was dropped with no words spoken to me.’
Schwarzer admits at the time he was seething at Pearson and ‘not the professional’ he prided himself on being.
And even when Leicester – under a new manager in Claudio Ranieri – won the Premier League the following season in fairytale fashion, the Socceroos great didn’t feel a true part of the celebrations.
Now a respected football pundit, Schwarzer maintains he was deceived by then Leicester manager Nigel Pearson
‘I’m not a Premier League winner,’ he said.
‘Yes, I was at Chelsea and then Leicester when they both won, but I wasn’t a central figure.
‘In my eyes, I had a front-row seat [on the bench] for both titles.’
In a decorated career, Schwarzer played at two World Cups for Australia and also is a club legend at Middlesbrough, who he chalked up 366 appearances between 1997 and 2008.
He remains a popular figure at Fulham following his five-year stint at the London club after first emerging as a teenager at Marconi in the old National Soccer League from 1990 onwards.
Schwarzer is best known for his two saves in the penalty shootout win over Uruguay in November of 2005, which saw the Socceroos qualify for the World Cup in Germany the following year, ending 32 years of heartache for football fans.
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