Alameda: Many years before he decided to play for Australia over Italy, it felt to Cristian Volpato that Australia had already decided it didnโt want him.
Twice.
Volpatoโs long estrangement from the Aussie game can be traced back to a tearful car ride with his old man, Oscar, in Sydneyโs western suburbs in 2019.
A teenage Volpato had just been cut by the Western Sydney Wanderers, having two years earlier been released from Sydney FCโs academy. Each club had arrived at the view that he wouldnโt make it in football; at least not with them.
โI got told from both of them that basically, Iโm not good enough to play,โ Volpato said.
โI just remember the car ride home with my dad. I was crying, and he just says, โWeโll go to Italy now, and weโll try it.โโ
The Volpato family decided to stake almost everything they had on the belief that their boy had talent that two of Australiaโs biggest clubs couldnโt see, and the hope that some strangers in another country would.
His mother, Claudia, sold her cafe so that she could follow him to Italy, where he had a trial with Serie A giants AS Roma โ one more chance, and probably his last one, to turn his passion into a career. There were no guarantees.
โWe leased our house, we left everything just to go for a trial,โ Volpato said. โAnd we thank God I made the trial, and my life changed from there.โ
In his first formal press conference since his dramatic late inclusion in Socceroos coach Tony Popovicโs 26-man squad for the World Cup, Volpato revealed on Monday (Monday night, AEST) the extraordinary chain of events, competing interests and conflicting emotions that led him back to the country where he was born and raised.
Only weeks ago, after a visit from Popovic and his assistant Paul Okon snr in March, Volpato told Italian media after a Sassuolo game that he was still โwaiting for Italyโ โ seemingly dashing any hopes that he would wear the green and gold.
Those comments, he said, were borne from a desire not to rock the boat at his club, where he struggled to see regular game time this season.
โIn that time period, I was still thinking about my club football because obviously, I havenโt gotten a lot of minutes, or the minutes that Iโd have liked,โ he said. โI just felt like staying in my comfort zone in Italy, trying to get as much minutes as I can – I didnโt really think of making a change then.โ
It wasnโt until days before Australiaโs World Cup squad was due to be officially lodged with FIFA that he made the call to switch his international allegiance from Italy, who he had represented at youth level.
In fact, Volpato can almost trace it back to a single moment: after his final game of the Serie A season for Sassuolo, against Alessandro Circatiโs Parma, on May 24. A close personal friend, Circati had long been on his case about playing for the Socceroos, and finally, he relented.
โSomething clicked, and my heart said, โJust go, I think you belong there,โโ he remembered.
โI didnโt want to come being 50-50. If I wanted to come, itโs because I wanted to come, and because I felt it was right. I just one day woke up literally, and I talked to my family. I said, โMum, I want to play for Australia.โโ
Had he waited much longer, Volpato might have missed the World Cup altogether. His Australian passport had expired, triggering a frantic dash back to Sydney to renew it before joining the squad in Los Angeles, where he met his new teammates for the first time.
โThank God โฆ [Iโm] thankful to the people at the passport place who helped me get it quickly,โ he said.
Volpato admitted that Italyโs failure to make this World Cup – and his omission from an Azzurri squad named on May 26, almost entirely comprised of players aged 22 and under – played at least some role in his decision, but not a big one.
โKind of yes and no,โ he said.
โFor me, it was just like, I want to play for Australia. Because Italy could have called me to the World Cup โฆ but I wanted to play for Australia. I felt like it was right. I felt like I could be myself and I could show myself here more.
โItโs been a long time, but Iโm grateful that I made my decision, and it came from me, it came from my heart. Some things may take longer than others, some people are different. But with me, I felt it was time, and Iโm so happy I made the decision.โ
But Volpato will always owe Italian football a debt of gratitude for giving him a โsecond opportunityโ in football – and understandably so.
Though he denied that his experiences in the Sydney FC and Wanderers academies had fostered any animosity towards the Socceroos, the reality is that Italy embraced him at precisely the moment he felt Australia had turned its back.
His debut for AS Roma in December 2021, under the legendary Jose Mourinho, kicked off a four-and-a-half-year saga in which Volpato repeatedly turned down Australian overtures, choosing to represent Italy at junior level while knocking back senior call-ups from the Socceroos – including from former coach Graham Arnold, who wanted to include him in his squad for the last World Cup in Qatar.
He is acutely aware of the things that have been said about him since, and that some fans thought – or perhaps still think – that he doesnโt deserve to wear the shirt.
โIโm human, like everyone else,โ Volpato said.
โIโm addicted to my phone like 90 per cent of the people in the world. I see everything, but sometimes thereโs going to be stuff said about you. Thereโs going to be good things, thereโs going to be bad things. As a footballer, youโve just got to be resilient. Sometimes you can use it as fuel. And I like to use that as well.โ
But there was never any escaping his Australian roots, even in Italy.
His first agent was Roma and Azzurri great Francesco Totti, who scored the controversial spot kick that put Italy through to the quarter-finals of the 2006 World Cup at Australiaโs expense, a game Volpato said he has watched โprobably like 100 timesโ – and then in 2023, he transferred to Sassuolo, where he was coached by Fabio Grosso, the player who (allegedly) dived over a prone Lucas Neill to win the penalty.
โItโs a bit like … you know what I mean?โ Volpato said, laughing.
โI spoke to Grosso โฆ he didnโt even know what he was doing, he felt a bit of contact, he went down. They got the pen; Totti just shot as hard as he could,โ he said.
Volpato is a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so he wouldnโt change any part of his journey. In the end, it has gotten him exactly where he wanted to be, all along: playing for his country, on the biggest stage his chosen pursuit can offer.
Already, he has shown why there has been such a clamour about his international loyalty: in his two appearances, Volpato showed a tendency to spark attacks by running directly at opponents, a trait seemingly rare in Australian players.
It hasnโt taken long for Socceroos fans to embrace him, either. On the streets of Vancouver, hours before the teamโs 2-0 win over Turkey, one of them held aloft a sign which read: โKeep the Colosseum, we got Volpato.โ
Theyโve even come up with a song for him: โHeโs one of our own, heโs one of our own – Cristian Volpato, heโs one of our own.โ
โMy sister, my family, they were sending me videos of it, so it was lovely to hear that,โ he said.
โI felt it from the first game against Turkey, just seeing after the game when we won, and just that support with the fans and the players was just amazing. I loved every bit of it.โ
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