six African Australians in the 26-player squad<\/a>, including Awer Mabil, Lucas Herrington, Tete Yengi and Jason Geria. His closest teammate is Nestory Irankunda; their friendship has bloomed since meeting through football during school in Adelaide. Irankunda is, like Tour\u00e9, a refugee but his family hails from Burundi via a camp in Tanzania, on the opposite side of the continent.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are from different parts, but \u2013 especially in Adelaide, I can\u2019t talk about other cities \u2013 we don\u2019t really see these things, we just see ourselves as a big African community. Now, of course, within the African community, we have different communities, but Nestor is just another African boy, Mabil is just another African guy as well. We all grew up loving the same thing, so we just connected that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liberia are not at this World Cup, yet they will be represented by their diaspora. Haji Wright is a striker for the USA and scored twice against the Socceroos in a friendly last year. Marseille forward Timothy Weah, son of George Weah \u2013 the only African Ballon d\u2019Or winner and former president of Liberia \u2013 also plays for the World Cup hosts.<\/p>\n
Tour\u00e9\u2019s father Amara keeps him updated with news from Liberia, and Tour\u00e9 still feels a close connection to his parents\u2019 homeland. \u201cOh man, it\u2019s always going to feel like home when I hear the word Liberia,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s where I feel like I belong, it\u2019s my home, no matter how tough it gets or no matter how rough it gets, I will never abandon it, I\u2019ll never stop caring for it.\u201d There is a passion for Guinea, too, and \u201cobviously\u201d Australia.<\/p>\n
Tour\u00e9 has an appreciation for the Socceroos who have come before him. Australia\u2019s male footballers were, for more than a generation, unlucky losers who could never quite take the final step to reach the World Cup. Tour\u00e9\u2019s cohort, however, knows nothing but qualification.<\/p>\n
Mo Tour\u00e9 has emerged as a fan favourite. Photograph: Mike Nowak\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
When John Aloisi scored the penalty to book the team\u2019s place in Germany 2006, Tour\u00e9 was one year old. He was barely walking when Viduka led the Socceroos on to the field for the famous win over Japan in Kaiserslautern 20 years agothis month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were literally talking about it at the table because in our dinner room we have photos of all the past teams and the XIs, we were trying to see how many players we knew,\u201d he says. \u201cWhere they were playing \u2026 it was sick, it was very nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The discussion \u2013 of Harry Kewell at Liverpool, of Tim Cahill at Everton, of Vince Grella and Mark Bresciano at Serie A clubs \u2013 enlivened ambition within the young group. Australia\u2019s best footballers have rarely gone all the way to the world\u2019s biggest clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were saying it because on our table we have a lot of young boys and we were like, that\u2019s our goal as well for one day. People to look at our squad and be, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s Mo from Real Madrid, that\u2019s Nestor from Bayern, that\u2019s Lucas from Liverpool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the days of Aloisi and Viduka, Australia have not produced a complete striker proved in a top European league. Mitch Duke performed remarkably in Qatar, and hybrid winger Mathew Leckie has had his moments, but the likes of Jamie Maclaren, Tomi Juric, Nikita Rukavytsya and Josh Kennedy have been more one-dimensional: finishers, hares or target men. Tour\u00e9 has all the ingredients of an elite, line-leading forward: strength, quickness and skill. Any comparison to Viduka, however, he resists immediately. \u201cThat\u2019s crazy, that\u2019s too far, too far.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recurring theme in the Terminator films is a desire to alter the past to secure the future. There has been much commentary about the relative youth of this Socceroos team, filled with Tour\u00e9, Irankunda, full-back Jordy Bos and central defenders Herrington and Alessandro Circati. The thinking goes they may be better in 2030 or 2034.<\/p>\n
Tour\u00e9 is taking nothing for granted. He may be young, but he already knows football\u2019s history cannot be rewritten. \u201cIt was a dream of mine to play for the Socceroos,\u201d he says. \u201cNow that I\u2019m here, I don\u2019t have for ever. The boys say that playing for the national team, it comes around quick, so I just want to leave an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 22-year-old was surprised but not unhappy when he saw the image on social media. \u201cMohamed Tour\u00e9 is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-484965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}