Awer Mabil is tired of the rhetoric about his past

The first thing you tend to tell about Awer Mabil it’s the last he would like to hear: the refugee striker of this World Cup, from a refugee camp in Kenya to the Australian national team. “This story is starting to piss me off”, replies the boy on the eve of his grand debut, on Tuesday against France. “People want to feel sorry for me, but few try to really understand who I am.” The heartbreaking headlines overshadow everything else: “The one that has been shaped since I arrived in Adelaide when I was 10”. And it led to him becoming one of only four Australian footballers to score in the Champions League. “Did you know this?”

Today Mabil is 27 years old. He has been living as a favorite in his homeland for a few months: the decisive rigor of him that allowed the Socceroos to overcome Peru in the interzone play-off. But he had left Australia in 2015, becoming a globetrotter. Denmark, Portugal, Turkey. Now Cadiz, in the Spanish Liga. “I understand that my name is associated with a long journey,” Awer explains in an interview with the Guardian. “But I prefer to underline another one. Because it’s not easy to find space. European football has certain prejudices against those who come from my country. And I can tell how to overcome them: it is in these clothes that I want to inspire children”.

There are at least three Mabils to consider. It is undeniable that he is the first to lend himself to the narrative of the incredible: born of South Sudanese parents who fled the war and raised in a United Nations post in the Rift valley. He lived on nothing. To invent a soccer ball, Awer and his friends had to crumple plastic bags. Today he doesn’t deny that experience, mind you, but the rhetoric that is made of it. “Those times taught me the value of humility: all those balls that we professionals use in training seem like a blunder to me”.

Mabil part two. In 2005 the family managed to emigrate to Adelaide “and I hated the first few months there: I wanted to go back”. The boy doesn’t speak English, he integrates thanks to dribbling on the pitches. And to the Australia of the greats on TV, which thanks to theexploit at the German World Cup – it took Totti’s penalty to stop her – she left an indelible mark on the new generation. That of Mabil, who continues to play dreaming of Tim Cahill and Europe. Because all the best are there. The facts give him confidence: signed his first professional contract with Adelaide United at barely 17, making his debut in the local A-league just two days later. He finds the first goals and especially the assists, the trademark of the offensive winger he will be.

And we come to the third phase: the transition to Midtjylland seven years ago. Thus the doors of the old continent are wide open. Where the fans acclaim the tears on Mabil’s wing, agile and technical. They tell him he doesn’t even look Australian. Answer: “Let’s hear, how should an Australian play? This imaginary must change”. Being the country of rugby doesn’t help. Or maybe yes. “Football is now the most practiced sport by the kids of Sydney. And in June Peru also underestimated us: it was our strength to fly to Qatar”.

Fourth chapter, all to be written. “Australia has given me and my family an opportunity,” Awer charges. “The best way to thank her was to take her to the World Cup. Now we have the means to get through the group”, sandwiched between France, Denmark and Tunisia. “And we dream of reaching the quarterfinals.” No one would put a cent on it. But that’s perfectly fine: Mabil has been overturning predictions all her life.