Tim Cahill: 'We're all about passion, belief and character'

Of all the Everton players preparing for Sunday's FA Cup semi-final, only one of them knows what it feels like to face Manchester United in the latter stages of the Cup, and he happens to be the nearest thing Everton have to a talisman, that overused word in football, and yet never truer than in the case of Timothy Joel Cahill.

In the 2004 FA Cup final, at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, Tim Cahill was in the First Division Millwall team soundly beaten 3-0 by United. A couple of months later David Moyes paid £1.5m to take him to Goodison Park, and it is hard to think of any ventures into the transfer market by any Premier League manager these last few years that have yielded greater value for money. From his debut, also against United, right up to his man-of-the-match performance in last Sunday's 3-3 thriller at Aston Villa, the 29-year-old Australian has worn the Everton shirt like his compatriot Ricky Ponting wears the baggy green cap, or like David Campese wore the green-and-gold Wallabies shirt, with fierce, almost preternatural commitment to the cause.

Legend is another overused word in football, but few Evertonians would balk at attaching it to Cahill, and it seems appropriate that on the day we meet, at Everton's Finch Farm training ground, he is sitting in front of a huge poster featuring him alongside his team-mate Mikel Arteta and three of the club's most illustrious players of the past: Joe Mercer, Bob Latchford and Alan Ball.

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If Ball is looking down from the celestial hospitality lounge on the Everton midfield on Sunday, he will see a kindred spirit in Cahill, who might be less gifted than the little terrier from Farnworth, but is a similarly irrepressible force, and an even more potent goalscorer. Sir Alex Ferguson will doubtless be sure to emphasise the aerial threat he presents, but then part of Cahill's job will be to stifle the attacking threat posed by United, all of which leads me to a $64,000 opening question: Everton wins over United anywhere have been as rare as dodo eggs over the past few seasons, so how do they propose to beat them at Wembley?

Cahill smiles. "We need four or five of them to have an off day, and we all need to play well," he says. "The basis of our team is character, strength, passion and belief. Everyone knows that. We have talent too – Phil Jagielka is one of the best players in the Premier League this season – but when you think about what we're missing, Yakubu, and Mikel the maestro, who makes the team tick, and you think that we're still looking good to finish sixth, or fifth, then what does that tell you about our spirit? I have to believe we're going to beat United. If I don't believe that then my dreams will never come true."

At Millwall, his dream of reaching an FA Cup final did come true; indeed, Cahill scored the goal, in the semi-final against Sunderland, that got them there. "Dennis Wise and Ray Wilkins were running the team, and I remember Ray saying after that game that we should all just sit and reflect on what we'd done. Sunderland at Old Trafford was our final, really. I wasn't upset that we lost to United because it was such a massive honour to get there. I remember thinking that if I didn't do anything else in football then all the sacrifices me and my family made to get me to England would have been worthwhile."

Yet Cahill has gone on to do so much more, I venture, paying huge dividends on Moyes' hunch that he could step up to the top division. "Yeah, and this time, of course, this is not my final. Out of the three teams they could have played, I think United wanted us least. We're disciplined, we're hard to play against, and the gaffer's moved Phil Neville into midfield, which gives us more stability."

The gaffer also moved Cahill to centre-forward when the club could muster no fit strikers, and he thrived. Yet he is happy to be back in midfield. "I want to be the one who breaks the deadlock, but the United defence is probably the hardest I've played against, and I'll get more of the ball in midfield. But they've got 11 players who can change a game; guys like Ronaldo, Giggs, Tevez, Fletcher, Carrick, and Park, who I think is underrated. And of course Rooney, who's magical."

Cahill arrived at Everton in the same week that Wayne Rooney left, and it's fair to assume that the Goodison faithful would have shed fewer tears over the export had they known how much pleasure the import would bring. He arrived determined to reward the manager's £1.5m leap of faith. "There are other managers who say now that they wanted to sign me, but this is the manager who did it, and when I met him and the chairman [Bill Kenwright], I knew this was the club for me. Even now, five years later, I'm still grateful every single day for the opportunity he gave me. He threw me in for my debut at Old Trafford because Tommy Gravesen was ill, and we got our first draw there in eight years. It was sink or swim that day, and I've been swimming ever since."

As, give or take a few mistimed strokes, have Everton. For that, Cahill credits Moyes. "He has built a core of players he knows and trusts, and I talk to him all the time. I love to know who I'm playing against. Whether it's Man United or Blackburn, I want to know my options against them, who's in form, who's not in form, how many tackles they make. There have been lots of people who've inspired me. I played next to Dennis Wise at Millwall, and Wisey used to have me on ropes and strings: 'Go forward, get back, play higher, play deeper.' And there have been others, like Ray Harford, Mark McGee, Billy Bonds. But the gaffer here is top-class. He's always played me to my strengths."

One of which, speaking of Blackburn, was identified by the Ewood Park boss Sam Allardyce earlier this season as a propensity for playing the man rather than the ball. I compliment Cahill on the cool way he dealt with that slur, saying it was nice of Big Sam to think of him. "Yeah, and look at the way his own teams play," he adds now, with a wry grin. "They all use their bodies brilliantly. So I take it as a compliment."

As for his own body, he has dedicated it to football for about as long as he can remember and ascribes his phenomenal ability to spring higher than players six or more inches taller to a mixture of innate talent and intensive coaching. "And diets. Even as a kid I had weird diets. Anything that might help me develop in the right way to play football. Loads of milk, only vegetables, only pasta, whatever the big thing was at the time. My life was football, especially as I didn't have the physique to be a rugby player, and actually the club I loved most was AC Milan in the era of Gullit, Van Basten, Savicevic, Baresi, Rijkaard. I can name them all even now, and I still think they were the best team ever, whatever anyone says. I had pictures of Roberto Baggio on my wall. But my dream was always to play in England, at any level."

His father was a Dagenham-born trawlerman who landed in Samoa one auspicious day back in the 1970s, and took a shine to a local girl. "That was the best thing ever," says Cahill, of the chance encounter that would turn the Essex boy and the Samoan girl into his parents. "They settled in Australia, where my dad was always involved with football. He was a massive West Ham supporter, although he switched to Millwall when I was there, and now my family are all massive Everton fans. That's what makes me tick, really, getting texts before games from my family back home, knowing they're all watching."

Cahill has a sister and two brothers, one of whom, Sean, is serving a six-year prison sentence for assault. Until now he has been engagingly sunny, but I risk a change in temperature by asking whether Sean's incarceration plays on his mind. An awkward shift in his seat. "It is what it is, and I deal with it. It's your blood, so you have to deal with it. I just try to do well on the pitch to make my mum and dad proud."

And what of the controversial goal celebration last March when, shortly after his brother had been sentenced, he mimed being handcuffed and was criticised, somewhat harshly, for romanticising the crime. Does he regret it? "It's done. And anything I say can be taken out of context. It was a bit of an emotional release for me but I never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings. I don't really talk about it any more."

OK, so let's turn swiftly to his more customary goal celebration, subjecting the corner flag to a combination of punches. It was borrowed, he explains, from a footballing pal Down Under, Archie Thompson, who marks goals with a kung fu manoeuvre. "I played with it a bit, and told Archie I'd take it to the Premier League. There was one season we couldn't hit a barn door, we'd lost eight games on the spin, and then we went to Sunderland and I scored a header in the 92nd minute. That's where I did it the first time, right in front of our fans, and it stuck. It suits me because I'm a massive boxing fan. Ricky Hatton's a friend and I've been to see his fights." While avoiding his fabled fry-ups? A laugh. The sun is out again. "Yeah. I'm not a fry-up guy. But Ricky inspires me. I think it's important in life to surround yourself with the right people, and he's definitely one of them."

He is certainly surrounded by the right people in that picture over his shoulder, I observe. "Yeah, all legends. And I got to play with other legends, with Duncan Ferguson and Alan Stubbs, who introduced me to Everton in the right way. Stubbsy was the biggest moaner ever on the pitch, and I knew he'd be on to me if I made a mistake. That kept me on my toes. And training with Duncan, what a finisher."

He also appreciates, he says, the heritage of a club that has participated in more FA Cup semi-finals than all bar Arsenal and tomorrow's opponents, United. More, even, than their high-achieving local rivals. "But I think it's difficult to be an Everton supporter with Liverpool in the Champions League every season, spending hundreds of millions. So when you see kids on the streets of Liverpool in Everton jerseys you're like, 'well done, son'. You're really proud of them because they genuinely support their local club. When we play derbies we see coaches coming from Norway carrying Liverpool supporters, but these are young kids whose parents have taught them what it is to be an Evertonian. It's the People's Club, for sure."

And let me finish, as I started, with a $64,000 question. Or more accurately, one worth considerably more. Does Cahill see his future with the People's Club? For only the second time in an hour his sunny features cloud over. "I hate transfer speculation. It's one of the worst things footballers have to deal with. If another club wants me they'll come and pay. But I was at Millwall for seven years, I've been here for five years. I'm not a traveller. I came all the way from Australia. I've done my travelling."

Except, he hopes, for two more trips down Wembley Way.