JAMES TROISI WAS PISSED OFF.
It was the 2015 Asian Cup inal
and he was starting on the
bench. But Troisi wouldn’t let
his frustration show. Instead, he
remained focused and positive,
cheering on his teammates as
the game ebbed and lowed.
When his time came, he vowed,
he would be ready.
In the 70th minute he “got
the call from the boss”. The
boss being then coach Ange
Postecoglou. His instructions
were clear. “He said win us the
game,” Troisi recalls.
With the score locked at 1-1
in extra time, the Socceroos
striker Tomi Juric was battling
defenders in the right corner.
What happened next now
unspools in Troisi’s mind like
a leisurely Sunday afternoon
drive up a looping country lane.
In reality, it was a matter of
seconds. “I remember Tomi was
in the corner and he was playing
with it and he got fouled, well I
thought it was a foul, I put my
arms up. But he managed to get
away from him, he did amazing
and it’s just that split second
where you react. The defender
was in front of me but I reacted
quicker. The ball was wobbling,
so I was conscious that I had to
keep it down.”
He did, slamming the ball
into the back of the net before
sprinting across the turf with
teammates in hot pursuit. “I
actually didn’t know what
to do so I just ran of like a
maniac. I still get goose bumps
thinking about it. Those kind
of moments can’t be unwritten.”
It seems silly to suggest that
your reputation can be deined
by a split-second moment but
it can, something Troisi knows
all too well heading into this
month’s World Cup. On the
biggest stage of all, where
the spotlight burns brightest,
heroes and villains will be
created on the spot. “That’s
the cutthroat thing about this
game,” says Troisi. Cometh the
hour, cometh the man? Actually
it’s cometh the second.And yet as leeting and
decisive as such moments
might be, they are, of course,
years in the making. Repetition
and sweat forge instincts and
embed muscle memory. “You
work hard, you do it week in,
week out, day in, day out,”
Troisi says. “Then you go out
there, it’s just a man across
from you. It’s a question of who
wants it more?”
Troisi made his mark
when it counted most. But as
monumental and personally
gratifying as that moment
was, it counts for little as the
Socceroos head into their irst
game against France next
week. “In our game you always
need to prove something
because people forget very
quickly,” he says. “There’s
always something to prove and
something to improve on.” And
if Troisi, the hero of Australian
football’s biggest triumph, is
more determined than ever to
raise his game, chances are you
probably should be too.
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