It started, as it so often does, with a phone call.
In 2008, 15-year-old Jackson Irvine was playing for Richmond Soccer Club in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
Or, rather, not playing.
He was one of the youngest members of the club's under-21 squad, so found himself on the bench a lot. Sometimes he didn't even get that far and was forced to watch the game from the stands.
He was unsettled. He knew what he wanted. He needed to be out there on the field, making an impact.
So, one day, he called the head coach.
I want to play, he told him. I need to be playing football.
Look, son, the coach replied, you're just not there yet. You're not ready.
Well, Irvine said, I need to go. I need to go somewhere else.
And he hung up the phone.
"I look back on that now and I'm like, 'cheeky little prick,'" Irvine laughs.
"A 15-year-old calling up a coach and being like, 'why am I not playing?'
"That guy must have hung up the phone like, 'What the hell? Who does this kid think he is?'"
It was a sliding-doors moment for the Socceroos midfielder in more ways than one.
The move away from Richmond not only saw Irvine land in the frame of a Scottish coach with connections to Celtic FC — where he signed a few years later — but it also led him to become, over time, more confident in his own voice, more conscious and vocal about what he believes in.
It's been over a decade since that "cheeky" phone call and Irvine's voice has only grown louder.
He's developed a reputation as one of the most outspoken members of the Socceroos, particularly on the social and political issues that professional footballers often avoid, and was a driving force behind the team's recent public statement regarding the upcoming Qatar World Cup.
His Instagram features photos of him in Black Lives Matter T-shirts, holding signs saying "water is a human right," and regularly wearing the rainbow armband of the German football club, FC St. Pauli, that he currently co-captains.
And with the World Cup just three weeks away — a tournament riddled with ethical questions around the treatment of migrant workers, the safety of the LGBTQIA+ community, the impact on the environment, and the insidiousness of state-sponsored sportswashing — Irvine is often tasked with facing the media to articulate the tensions and dilemmas of it all from the players' perspectives.
It's a big responsibility. But it's one that, when he looks back on his upbringing in Melbourne, he thinks he was almost subconsciously prepared for.
"My mum has always been very aware of everything that's going on in the world and always encouraged me to be curious and to have an understanding of what's going on outside of your own bubble," he told ABC.
"My aunties and uncles and cousins, on my mum's side, have all been extremely politically active. It's always been at the forefront of discussion, even at a 10-year-old's birthday party.
"Inclusivity has always been a big, big part of it. Members of my family are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, so everything related to diversity and equality has always been a big part of that conversation.
"Environmental awareness, as well, has always been at the forefront in the way that we live our lives.
"That baseline was given to me as a young person, but it's definitely something I've grown into more and more throughout my career and my life."
Music helped shape his politics, too. The soundtrack of his childhood featured musician-activists like Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Billy Bragg, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie; some of whom he now has tattooed across his body as a kind of living, breathing tribute.
He wasn't aware of it then, but that formative soundscape fed into his enduring love of music as both meditation (he plays guitar to relax) and as a form of protest, citing modern-day artists like Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino as carrying on that tradition.
While his mum's side of the family has shaped who Irvine has become off the field, his dad has shaped who he has become on it.
Born on a council estate in Aberdeen, Scotland, Steve Irvine moved to Australia in the late 1970s. He played football semi-professionally himself, kicking about in Victoria alongside the likes of Ernie Merrick, Paul Wade, and Donnie McLaren (father of fellow Socceroo Jamie).
Football, then, was in his blood. Irvine remembers picking up an Aussie Rules football when he was five and his dad saying to him, gently but firmly, "nah, I'm not having this".
He and his dad would get up in the early hours of the morning to watch the Champions League on SBS, and get along to every Socceroos game on home soil that they could, including the now-famous 2005 World Cup qualifier against Uruguay in Sydney, where he was photographed in the stands wearing the jersey of the nation he now represents.
Jackson never really had a team, though. While his dad was an Aberdeen fan down to his bones, Irvine was more diplomatic: he admired players like Zinedine Zidane, Harry Kewell, and David Beckham (partly for the long hair), but was never hooked on any one club. He was, and still is, just in love with the game.
It's been almost a decade since debuting for the Socceroos, and Irvine has found that his relationship with Australia and Australianness has evolved over that time — in part due to geography.
After signing for Celtic in 2010, his career took him throughout Scotland and England where he developed a deeper appreciation for his family history and his own identity. He used to mimic his dad's accent when he was a kid, and has now developed a slight twang when he speaks.
Due to his dad's heritage, Irvine was eligible to represent Scotland at international level. But when he earned his first call-up to a Scotland under-19s camp, he had another sliding-doors moment.
"It does start to wrestle with your identity a little bit," he said.
"It's funny that it even came down to something football-related, but when I went into that camp, I remember being like, 'it's not there. It's just not there.' Something was missing.
"I was super proud, my dad was super proud — he still has my Scotland jersey hanging in his office. It was an awesome moment for me and for that part of my family. But it just wasn't quite there. That's when I made the decision that I was going to play for Australia; it was a clear marker for me in terms of that was how I identified myself.
"As you get older, you always wrestle with that. I'm sure most Australians — especially ones that are first or second-generation migrants coming out of Europe or other backgrounds — about what it means to be Australian, and how that ties into your family and everything else."
Since his first national team cap in 2013, Irvine has played an increasingly influential role in the slowly-changing culture and identity of the national team, too.
Where it was once common for football fans to claim that sport and politics shouldn't mix, many of Irvine's generation and younger are reckoning with the fact that the two have always been intertwined, and are now starting to use football as a platform through which to talk about it.
"International football is, at its core, so nationalistic," he said.
"I'm sure a lot of people wrestle with it in their own ways in terms of what that means. For families like mine, we didn't celebrate Australia Day. We've never been patriotic or nationalistic, and that probably comes from my extended family as much as anything.
"So when I look at what it means to be Australian, [while you always want to look forward [...] the key to moving forward is reparations, acknowledgement of who we are and where we came from. That's not just us as first and second-generation migrants, that's the history of the country, as well.
"Until you can find some way to heal in that sense, I don't think we'll ever be able to really let go of where we came from in terms of that. But there's more and more people aware of it now. Even since the death of the Queen and the conversation around a republic will progress, hopefully, in a different way as well.
"Being part of initiatives like the Uluru Statement from the Heart through the PFA (player's union), these are the beginnings of progressive ideas that will start to have some kind of healing effect and move the country forward.
"The Socceroos have always been such a huge part of that, and probably something we haven't tapped into enough. There's not many other Australian teams in other sports that can boast such a diverse population, and it's probably as clear a representation of modern Australia as you can find in terms of sport."
Qatar has brought a lot of the questions and tensions of Irvine's life into view.
While a number of national teams will make public statements about the human rights element of this World Cup, the Socceroos are more concerned with creating meaningful and long-lasting change for those affected.
Over the past two years, players have spoken with union leaders, human rights groups, and migrant workers themselves to better understand the situation on the ground and narrow down some more practical things they can do behind the scenes.
Earlier this week, the players released a public statement supporting the construction of a Migrant Workers' Resource Centre in Qatar and calling on its government to decriminalise same-sex relationships.
It's the strongest public stance that any World Cup-bound team has made so far, while other national teams such as Denmark, Norway, and England have said they will wear symbolic shirts and armbands throughout the tournament; decisions that have been labelled as "virtue-signalling" or empty gestures by some in the football community.
"Gestures are great for drawing eyes and ears to certain issues, but we've always felt that engaging directly is more [important]," Irvine said.
"I'm sure there will be some kind of visible display [from Australia], but I know a lot of what we do will take place before the tournament so that our position is absolutely clear before we go in.
"The gestures and the conversation will come, but we want to push in a real direction. That's the hope; that the things we've been part of will help create real and lasting change.
"From a player's perspective, the gestures can be one of the most powerful things they can do because that's who all eyes are on, but then you hope that can apply pressure to the governing bodies and structures to create [change] themselves as well."
Qatar has also raised more philosophical tensions for Irvine and, undoubtedly, for many other national team players.
On the one hand, they are human beings with beliefs and principles and their own moral compass.
On the other, they are also workers who want to represent their country and community, and are often the most powerless group in the ebbs and flows of the sporting ecosystem around them.
Sometimes, those two things can collide in uncomfortable ways.
"I've had some really interesting conversations in the last few months about the soul of the game, the heart of the game," Irvine said.
"Fundamentally, we're all football lovers, and World Cups are the grandest stage of them all. They're what you grew up wanting to play in.
"But there's an ethical dilemma. The more and more I've learned about these issues, it's abundantly clear that you're going to be torn about being there — as we have been for a long time already.
"But at the end of the day, these decisions are not things that we're part of. Your influence is not so direct in that way. One you know that, then that's why myself and I'm sure many others feel we have an obligation to speak about the other side of things.
"Because I do want to participate. I don't want to boycott. But then it's like, well, what can I do? What else is there? What other role can we play within that?
"This is becoming more and more of a conversation in football now. In England, you have the Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle and things like that; these conversations around football and ethics and politics. For a lot of players, it's complicated."
Playing his club football with FC St. Pauli has shown him the other side of the coin: the way the sport could be if it embraced its power to advocate for human rights, inclusion, justice, equality, and diversity.
"Most people know about what this club means and what it's all about," he said, "but when you're in the community and in the stadium and part of it all, it's a cliche but it really is embedded in what you do here. It makes you realise that it is possible; that football can be like this.
"St Pauli are outspoken on every front, from anti-racism to anti-homophobia to support for refugees. We have written on one of our stands 'no person is illegal'. This is part of the make-up of the club.
"Not saying everyone needs to be like what we are, but it is possible to not shy away from major issues, and to live and breathe them and embed them into everything. When it comes to rainbow armbands, it's not just a gesture — we wear it every week for years.
"This is who we are and the values we hold. Playing here has definitely sharpened my view, but I think more than anything, it's given me a backing to be more outspoken and comfortable to be that as well.
"Everybody here is behind you in terms of that. There's not gonna be any pushback. At the end of the day, if you really believe in something, you accept the consequences of what it is because if you try to do something right, that's more important than the potential backlash."
And while he knows that his circumstances are rare, and that money overwhelmingly controls football and footballers at both the club and international level, he still believes that the game's soul can be saved.
And he wants to do everything he can to use his voice — that same voice the resolute 15-year-old used down the phone in 2008 — to make an impact. To be part of its salvation.
"If there's anything from my Socceroos career that you can have there, you hope you've encouraged people to try and make not just the game better, but make your community and your country a better place through football and through any kind of influence that you have," he said.
"There's never a space that shouldn't be actively working in favour of human rights for all people. Sport is an incredibly powerful platform to promote those issues and draw attention to them when they're being exploited.
"I hope that's something that the future national teams can continue, and I hope this is a space they can continue to grow into and be more influential than what we were."
This story is part of ABC Sport's "Socceroos In The Spotlight" series in the build-up to the 2022 men's World Cup. You can read part one on Mitch Duke here, part two on Ajdin Hrustic here, part three on Aziz Behich here, and part four on Miloš Degenek here.
