To understand how badly Josh Nisbet wanted to be a Socceroos player, you have to go back to the 2006 World Cup when the midfielder was spending his time creating fake email addresses instead of defence-splitting passes.
“Mark Bresciano (was my idol),” Nisbet told AAP.
“I had the team poster from the middle of the magazine up on the wall and I even had a fake email address with MarkBresciano@hotmail.com or something like that.
"I was just a big fan of his, so I made my email address off his name but I didn’t spell it quite right.
“He played in the midfield and played with that elegance and confidence, he was just a quality player.”
Nisbet takes to the pitch with a similar grace and style, and his emergence as one of the A-League Men’s most influential midfielders has led to him being rewarded with a maiden call-up for the Socceroos.
The Central Coast man was brought into the senior set-up following Lewis Miller’s withdrawal due to injury and he was mobbed by his Mariners teammates when club coach Mark Jackson told him of his selection.
"It means a lot to have people just as excited as I am to get in this squad," the 24-year-old said.
Nisbet will hope to feature in two World Cup qualifiers against Lebanon, the first of which takes place at Parramatta’s CommBank Stadium on Thursday.
But there were times when he thought he might never get to this point.
Standing just 160cm tall, Nisbet's height has always been held against him despite his obvious quality.
And when he was on the cusp of first-team football at the Mariners, he was told by former boss Alen Stajcic that he didn’t fit into his plans.
“When I first started playing for the Mariners things weren’t going too well,” Nisbet said.
“I really respect ‘Staj’ for doing that and having that conversation to be honest.
“Not many people are straightforward with you and tell you the truth.
“Thankfully I backed myself enough and tried to change his opinion and I think I did that and we’ve got a great relationship.”
Nisbet really began to make a name for himself under Stajcic’s successor at the Mariners, Nick Montgomery, who took the club to an Australia Cup final in 2022 and masterminded their 6-1 thrashing of Melbourne City in last season’s grand final.
This year Nisbet has begun to add the polish of a playmaker, delivering a league-high seven assists across 21 games, but the tenets of Montgomery’s us-against-them philosophy still loom large.
Asked what he would say to younger players who found themselves unwanted and out of favour, Nisbet replied: “Have fun, back yourself and no matter who you are, there’ll be people who aren’t on your side.
“As long as the people you care about are with you, and you back yourself, then anything is possible.”
