Picture this: two Greek Australian boys, one ten, the other nine years old. Both growing up in the suburbs of Sydney with a shared dream – to play club football at the highest level and one day represent their country.
Cut to almost a decade later. Both are playing for the youth teams of top-level clubs in Europe. One eyes the Serie A, while the other, the English Premier League. In March this year the young duo were selected to be part of an Australian national team camp as part of preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The story of those two boys, now young adults is the football journey of Greek-Australian footballers Panos Armenakas and Con Ouzounidis.
When Ouzounidis was 11-years-old he was offered a trial with English Premier League club Everton. Six years later the young defender is still with the Merseyside club’s youth academy system and plays with their U18 team.
In March this year, Ouzounidis was selected by Olyroos coach Josep Gombau to be part of a 22-player development squad with its main purpose to identify future Socceroos.
He says being picked to be part of the nine-day training camp in the Spanish region of Murcia was a humbling experience
“It was such a proud moment,” says the young player.
“Everyone obviously wants to represent their country so to get that call up was unbelievable, especially as I am only 17 and being involved in a team that was an older age group it felt quite special to me.
“It was a good experience speaking to the lads that are older and are playing professional football, just to pick up some advice and tips on what they did to get to the top. Because I am still quite young and I haven’t really done that much in football yet.
“I’ve still got a long way to go and to see what they have been through, the paths they [have] taken in their lives, to hear their struggles, ups and downs, it gave me an understanding of what it takes to make it. I’ve still got a long time ahead of me before I can really say that I’m a professional footballer.”
While Ouzounidis has flown underneath the radar Panos Armenakas’ story is more well-known. Identified as a football prodigy from a young age, he was just six years old when football giants Barcelona invited him to an all-expenses-paid trip to play and train with the Catalan club for a month.
Armenakas hadn’t yet turned 16 when he signed with Udinese making him the youngest Australian player to ever sign a professional contract with any of the top five European leagues. Now 18, he has just finished his third season playing for Udinese’s reserve team squad and two years ago played for the Joeys at the U17 World Cup.
After club commitments ruled him out of an U20 Australian national youth team camp earlier in the season, Armenakas says he was glad to attend the one that took place in March.
“I was really happy that I was able to go this time,” he says. “It was a really good experience. We were away for ten days and training was good, the weather was good and I loved being able to go away with the Australian national team again. Some of the older boys who play in Europe are really good players. We all got along and it was in a nice part of Spain.”
For Ouzounidis, being at the camp brought back memories of when he used to play football as young boy and he revealed that one of the members of the squad was very familiar.
“I used to play against Panos when I was younger back in Australia,” he says. “I was about 10 years old and I used to be in a similar team to him.
“We always used to come up against each other. I did speak to him a bit to be fair because obviously two Greek boys in the Australian camp we did like to talk to each other.”
Armenakas says he enjoyed mixing with Ouzounidis and being able to catch up from where they left off.
“We had a lot to talk about,” he says. “I was telling him about my experiences in England when I used to play for Watford. I remember playing against Everton and some of the boys he is playing against now, I played with or against.
“When we both moved to Europe we were around the same age. We both started playing in England, he started at Everton and before I moved to Italy I played at Watford so our experiences were very similar.
“He’s lost his Australian accent so he’s got the Liverpool accent now. He’s a good Greek kid, he grew up with the same family values as I did so it was good to hang out.
“He is a good player and we still message each other every so often now.”
During the Spanish camp, the Australians played two International friendlies against Austria and Finland who were using the games to prepare for the U21 European Championships which are taking place now.
At 17, Ouzounidis was the youngest player in camp and feels he acquitted himself against much older players.
“I came on for 35 minutes against Austria and I think I did quite well to be fair,” he says.
“The coach did seem to be pleased and hopefully I can get another call up soon, if possible. When I was on the field we had most of the ball. Our coach is very good in terms of telling us how he wants us to play. He always wants us to keep the ball. So, for me I’m better on the ball, that’s my quality, that is my style. So I like to play with the ball at my feet and I had a lot of opportunities to show what I could do during that game.”
Armenakas also had high praise for the style that Gombau who is a former Barcelona youth mentor, had the team playing.
“I loved the coach a lot,” he says. “Just the way he wants us to play football, his mentality, and his theories on football.
“He got his theories across well. He was strict but he let the boys play with freedom and he knew what he wanted. We all put a lot of time into creating chemistry off the pitch and that helped us on the pitch. We played some really, really, good football as well. It was really surprising that even with a short period of time that we were able to play with the ball on the deck from the back, the goalkeeper didn’t play any long balls and it was good.”
Ouzounidis says their experiences show where football can take you.
“It’s quite funny to think about,” he says, “That no matter where you go – I’ve been to the other side of the world – Panos has also been to England and plays in Italy – that two local boys from Sydney could end up being in Spain for a camp for Australia six years on. It was quite a good experience.”