23-year-old Australian Jacob Eliopoulos knows this better than most. The defender has spent the past four years playing in Cyprus.

But at the moment, like the rest of the world, he is at a crossroads. With football shutdown because of the coronavirus, he has been left in limbo.

Eliopoulos and his club ASIL Lysi were mounting a promotion challenge to get into the Cypriot First Division. After 20 rounds they were on 19 points, 11 behind league leaders Karmiotissa.

Eliopoulos had been central in ASIL Lysi ‘s charge in 2019/2020. But that is now all on hold until the action resumes, whenever that is.

“It’s a bit frustrating, but what do you do,” he told FTBL.

“The season had been pretty good. The team was looking to get promoted to the first league. We started off pretty well and then in the last few games we dropped off a little bit. We’re still in contention but now with all this happening it’s fallen out the window. I

"It wasn’t meant to be, but hopefully there’s another path for me.”

The centre back has dealt with setbacks before. Growing up in Melbourne, Eliopoulos came through the ranks of Heidelberg United and Bentleigh Greens.

He debuted in the NPL Victoria as a teenager with Northcote City.

“At 16 I made my first-team debut. The coach was Goran Lozanovski, I had a good relationship with him,” he explained.

“He gave me my senior debut and I’ve never looked back since.”