“Around the football traps, I’ve always been known as Michael Theo so I just thought, why not make it official?” the three-time Hyundai A-League Goalkeeper of the Year said.

“It’s no big deal, I haven’t changed my name completely, just shortened it.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while and it was a decision I made on my own, it’s really not so hard to do on deed poll.

“My signature has altered, slightly changed but that’s pretty much it.”

While the former Melbourne Victory player maintains it has caused minimal disruption to his life, Theo said his teammates had embraced the change, typically with their cheeky side on show.

“The day they found out, us goalkeepers started training early and then when the other boys came around doing their warm up, I could see they had names on their shirt,” he explained.

“I said to Matty Acton, ‘Hey, I think we’ve got a new sponsor!’ but when we looked on the back of our shirts, we didn’t have anything.

“The boys stopped in front of me and I saw they all had their names shortened – we had Matt Smit, Thomas Bro, Erik Paart amongst others!

“It was good banter from the boys, I wasn’t expecting that.”

From now on, Brisbane Roar’s No.1 will wear the name Theo above his number on the back of his club jersey.