"We had plan A and plan B; plan C was to get the bazooka out, but we couldn’t find where it was parked."
DENIS PAGAN, North Melbourne coach, after Kouta’s 38-disposal, five-goal game against the Roos in 2000.

KOUTA MOMENTS

1 THE 1995 FINALS
Carlton loses only two games in the season, romping to a premiership. Koutoufides, in his fourth season, is named All-Australian. On grand final day, he tears away at Geelong off a wing, gathering the ball 31 times. Greg Williams wins the Norm Smith Medal, but Koutoufides is somewhere in the mix behind him.

2 ROUND 5, 1996
Koutoufides, playing forward, back and wide, single-handedly carries Carlton to a one-point win over West Coast at Princes Park. He has 35 disposals and 18 marks in what is described later as one of the greatest individual games ever played.

3 PRELIMINARY FINAL, 1999
Koutoufides has 29 disposals and two goals in Carlton’s one-point win over an Essendon team regarded by most observers as superior. But his last quarter — two goals, three huge marks at either end of the ground and a cluster of possessions in the maelstrom of the middle — is the one that demands notice. Without doubt, it is one of the great single quarters of football played by an individual.

4 THE 2000 SEASON
Fit and referred to as "the prototype modern footballer", Kouta dominates Richmond in round seven, beginning a streak of 11 games in which he kicks 29 goals, averages close to 30 disposals and earns 19 Brownlow Medal votes. Against Sydney in round eight, he has 39 disposals and two goals. Against Fremantle in round nine, 33 and four, another 30 and three against St Kilda in round 10, and 38 and five against North Melbourne in round 11. Kouta wins the AFL Players Association’s Most Valuable Player award and is All- Australian.

5 THE KNEE
In round 20 of his groundbreaking season, Koutoufides runs back with the flight of a high ball and hits knee-on-knee with Essendon’s Jason Johnson at the MCG. The posterior cruciate ligament damage to his right knee forces him to miss the 2000 finals and slows him at the start of 2001. At the end of that season, Matthew Knights falls across the same knee in a final and ruptures his anterior cruciate ligament, requiring a reconstruction.

6 THE RETURN
Playing only three games in 2002 and only 12 in 2004, Koutoufides’ stocks have fallen. But he is named captain in 2004 and reinvents himself as an in-and-under clearance player, setting up runners outside him. In 2005, he wins Carlton’s best-and-fairest award for the second time, albeit in a dreadful side.

7 THE END
Having missed the first six games, he limps off against St Kilda in round 17 at Telstra Dome. His injury is glibly reported in the newspapers as "leg". It is the last time he graces a football field.