He’s regarded as Australia’s greatest footballing export and has the CV to back it up.

And despite his time at Liverpool proving the most successful of his playing career – he has the FA Cup and Champions League winners’ medals to prove it – it’s Harry Kewell's time as an emerging young talent in an exciting Leeds United team he’s most fondly remembered for in England.

After arriving at Elland Road as a 15-year-old and working his way through the Yorkshire club’s academy, the Sydney-born midfielder went on to become a mainstay in David O’Leary’s swashbuckling side which threatened the Premier League elite and went all the way to the Champions League semi-finals in 2001.

According to Kewell the team was rough and tough, but they could play. Speaking to UCFB as part of the Melbourne Virtual Global Summit, Kewell said: “If you could have ever recorded our training sessions it would have been gold. That was the roughest, toughest team I’ve ever played with or played against. That was just my training team, so come the weekend whoever I played against was nothing.”

His team mates at the time included Rio Ferdinand, Jonathan Woodgate, Ian Harte, Alan Smith, Robbie Keane and fellow Australian Mark Viduka.

Kewell, who most recently was in cahrge at Oldham Athletic, and his teammates took on Valencia in the last four of the Champions League, following a European campaign which saw them play the likes of Barcelona, AC Milan, Lazio and eventual winners Real Madrid. However, despite a gutsy goalless draw at home, a 3-0 defeat in Spain ended the Premier League side’s dream.

Kewell said: “We nearly won the Champions League, we nearly got to the final – we would have done if Mendieta didn’t handle the ball! But when I look back on that performance at Elland Road, we should have won. We should have won two or 3-0. We hit the bar, hit the post, we played all over them.”