Awer Mabil’s extraordinary story begins in the Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya, but he doesn’t want it to end there. He doesn’t want your pity, either. Born to parents fleeing the Sudanese civil war, raised in a small hut, he went half way round the world then half way back again to become a professional footballer in Denmark, Portugal, Tukey and Spain. He is, he points out, one of only four Australians to score in the Champions League and now he’s going to the World Cup. In fact, it was his penalty, at sudden death in the playoff, that ultimately took the country there.
He has become a hero and, he hopes, an inspiration, embarked upon a hell of a journey against the odds. After all, he says: “When you come to Europe from Australia you’re nobody, you don’t have the respect, so you have to really work, fight.” But he knows that is not the part people usually focus on; instead his origins in Kakuma eclipse all else. And that, he admits, “starts to piss me off a lot”.
