New Frontiers: Why Australians are coming to the AFL for a chance at football | Australia
TThere is perhaps no greater reminder that Australia is a remote island nation with limited global influence than the fact that many Aussies ponder a niche form of online football content known as ‘Aussies Abroad’.
While the likes of Ned Zilic and Paul Okon were not the first Australian players to move to Europe, their arrivals at Borussia Dortmund and Club Brugge in the early 1990s coincided with increased interest in how Australian footballers performed overseas.
By the time Mark Viduka and Harry Kewell starred in the Premier League for Leeds United almost a decade later, Australian fans were well acquainted with keeping tabs on the Aussies abroad.
So, it’s no surprise to see lists of Australians plying their trade in the AFL being eagerly updated every time there’s another transfer. Perhaps most surprising is that more Australian rules football fans are not watching the league on Apple TV.
“I feel like there should be more exposure to Major League Soccer in Australia,” said Patrick Yazbek, an Australian and Nashville midfielder. He added: “I still feel that a lot of Australians have the misconception that the only alternative to watching the A-League is to watch European football.”
It’s a perception Yazbek is keen to change, not least because many matches start at an ideal time for viewers in Australia. In a country where Champions League matches start on average at 4.30am, most Saturday night MLS matches start at the more acceptable hour of 9.30am on Sunday morning.
“What more could you want than to sit down with a coffee and watch the game?” Yazbek said.
Football starting point
Yazbek is one of a growing number of Australians who have taken advantage of a move to North America to help boost their national team ambitions. Of the 25 players called up to the squad to face World Cup hosts Canada and the United States this month, three – Yazbek, DC United defender Kai Rowles and New York City FC midfielder Aiden O’Neill – play soccer in Major League Soccer. Fourth, defender Milos Degenek – who recently captained Australia against New Zealand in Canberra – was once a mainstay in the Columbus Crew.
Yazbek, who began his professional career with A-League club Sydney FC, took a trodden path to Europe when he joined Norwegian club Vikings in 2023. But it is his next move that has raised many eyebrows in Australia, with the Sydney-born midfielder replacing Stavanger’s Bird as a relative unknown in Nashville.
It’s a move that has paid off for the midfielder, with Yazbek appearing in both matches for Australia against New Zealand in September. He admits it was a conscious decision to move to a higher-quality league where his performances were more likely to be noticed.
“I honestly believe that the Major League Soccer is on its way to becoming one of the best leagues in the world within a few years,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of discussions with my teammates and teammates, saying, ‘I’ve only been here 12 months and I’ve already seen a lot of growth.’
Professional opportunities
In a league full of names like Lionel Messi, Son Heung-min, Thomas Müller, Miguel Almiron and Emil Forsberg, it’s probably safe to assume that only Australian fans are interested in how the likes of Archie Goodwin, Giuseppe Bufalina and Lucas Herrington perform on the other side of the world.
But while the AFL has proven to be a viable stepping stone to full national team honors – Godwin, Bufalina and Herrington are all youth internationals in Australia – it has also succeeded in ways that the domestic A-League has struggled to replicate.
One such area is full-time coaching roles, an area that Chris Sharpe knows well.
Sharp, a goalkeeper, ended his playing days in Colorado in 2012 after stints in England, Denmark and his native Australia. Now in his 18th season with the club, he has spent the past decade helping shape the careers of a number of notable goalkeepers in his role as the Rapids’ long-time assistant and goalkeeping coach.
“I think that’s unusual in the world of football,” Sharpe said of his unusually long tenure with the Rapids. “It’s probably more common with goalkeepers and goalkeeping coaches – especially if the goalkeepers have long-term contracts – because there is a special bond between the goalkeeper and the goalkeeping coach.”
It’s an association that has seen Sharpe mentor the likes of US national team goalkeepers Tim Howard, William Yarbrough and Zach Stevens. Howard, who remains the most decorated goalkeeper in the history of the US men’s national team, even asked Sharpe to introduce him on stage when the latter is inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2024.
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Sharpe admits he will have mixed feelings when the Socceroos prepare to take on the United States at Colorado’s Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on October 14, but the Sydney-born coach says he is grateful for the opportunities his new homeland has afforded him.
“After being here so long, I built my life and career here,” he said. “The United States has given me opportunities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, so I’m really grateful for that.”
Variable model
Adam Waterson is another Australian who has swapped the comforts of Down Under for a life in the AFL.
LA Galaxy’s long-serving head of strength and conditioning joined the club just two months before Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s arrival, but says young Australian players are now more likely to attract the attention of MLS scouts.
“Honestly, you’re in the shop window,” Waterson said of the league’s changing transfer strategy. “There are clubs all over the world now that look at MLS as a kind of developmental league.”
After finishing second behind rival Los Angeles FC in the Western Conference in 2024, the Galaxy went on to win the MLS Cup with a 2-1 win over the New York Red Bulls. Despite the presence of former high-profile internationals such as Maya Yoshida and Marco Reus, the contributions of Josef Paintsil, Gabriel Beck and Dejan Juveljic – who joined Sporting Kansas City for $4 million in the league’s first cash-for-player deal – proved crucial.
The Galaxy paid about $19 million in transfer fees to acquire the relatively unknown Pec and Paintsil, but as Watterson points out: “They won us a championship.”
And with clubs across the league using a mix of high-profile recruits and raw young talent, it’s a model that could see MLS clubs continue to sign the best Australian youngsters, develop them, then move them on for higher transfer fees.
“In the past, we have spent money on players like Zlatan, Robbie Keane, Ashley Cole and Steven Gerrard,” Watterson said. “We’re now moving away from that model a little bit, which could be great for young Australian kids.”
Common ground
With the AFL currently boasting eight Australian players – along with three New Zealand internationals in Michael Boxall, Finn Surman and Bill Tuiloma – it’s hard to imagine we’ve seen the last of the arrivals from Down Under.
Having recently lifted the US Open Cup with Nashville and with the World Cup looming, Yazbek admits that a shared language – and ability to adapt to the physical demands of the league – has helped propel him into the national team spotlight.
“This is the first year I played close to 40 games, and it was really good,” he said. “I was on a winning team, which is also important.”
While Australia coach Tony Popovic can afford to experiment now that his Australia side have booked their place in next year’s World Cup, he has generally shown a preference for those who play regularly for their club teams. That should keep Yazbek – who played 80 minutes in the recent US Open Cup final win over Austin FC – in good stead.
“Before coming to Nashville, that was definitely a consideration,” he said. “The question was: Will this facilitate the national team’s ambitions?”
Now, having put himself in the national team spotlight, he is well placed to secure his place on the plane to the World Cup, which will be held in a region he knows well.
“Coming to the AFL, I felt like I was making a big leap because I was one of the first young Australian players to move here,” he said.
He added: “But I feel that I have taken this step and I am confident that playing in this league regularly will help me, and I think everything has gone really well.”