Currently the 25-year-old is VPL top scorer with 17 goals and three in the Cup. Not bad for a play-maker.

Last year he finished third in the player of the year vote and bagged 13 goals. That’s over 30 goals in not quite two seasons. But will he pick up an A-League contract?

That remains to be seen but with AAMI Park hosting the VPL grand final this year and Cardozo’s side Hume expected to challenge for finals glory, no doubt there’ll be at least one or two curious A-League coaches having a look for new talent.

And with the A-League just around the corner who knows? You ask any footballer, timing is everything. 

Cardozo’s had a sniff in the past with trials here and there. The talent has never been in question but it seems he’s had more than his share of bad timing in his career.

After scoring against Chelsea in the Joeys pre-World Cup UK tour, he went on to play in the 2003 World U-17 Cup in Finland, including against Argentina.

Cardozo played full game in the 2-0 loss to the South Americans who featured the likes of Fernando Gago of Real Madrid, Anderlecht’s Lucas Biglia (who played this year’s Copa America) and Benfica’s Ezequiel Garay.

Cardozo kept the likes of Erik Paartalu – an A-League grand final winner earlier this year – on the bench. Other players in that starting line-up included Melbourne Victory’s Adrian Leijer and Melbourne Heart’s Kristian Sarkies.

He also played against Nigeria (losing 2-1) and Costa Rica (a 2-0 loss). The Joeys also had a player sent-off against Argentina and the Ticos.

 “Being in the national U-17s, it was probably one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in football as a player,” Cardozo told au.fourfourtwo.com.

“How professional it was, the World Cup. There was a bit of kerfuffle about us perhaps we should’ve gone further in the group [they lost all three games].

“But we weren’t given even teams in the lead-up and enough camps. Ange [Postecoglou] was probably hard done by in that sense.”

The Joeys had just three warm-up games – against Arsenal and Chelsea reserves and the USA. “Arsenal were freakishly good!

“But the attitude we had was great and Ange’s coaching, I rated him. I was surprised he wasn’t given an A-League gig sooner.

“He’s proven how good he is and he was the same back then. He liked to play football, move the ball around.”

 His was one of the names tagged for future glory. But returning to Australia, Cardozo fell foul of the gap between the end of the NSL and the start of the A-League.

He missed the boat for season one and has been on the fringes of the A-League ever since.

Rather like his brother and NSL great Pablo (at the time named by FourFourTwo magazine as one of the best ten players outside the A-League).

Pablo was a star. A goal-machine with a golden touch the four-times capped Socceroo striker, now 38, scored almost 100 goals – many of them gems – in an NSL career that began in West Adelaide but blossomed in Sydney with Olympic, Northern Spirit and Parra Power.

For the younger Cardozo, a spell in the New Zealand league with Waitakere United yielded seven goals in 16 games ending as the club’s top goal-scorer.

In 2009 he had a 10-day trial with Austrian Bundesliga side Lask Linz. In the one friendly match he played, Cardozo scored one, set-up the second and won the penalty for the third goal.

 At the time the team were battling relegation and didn’t need flair, they needed grafters. Again, the  timing wasn’t great.

He’s even trained with River Plate but in Argentina, you’d need to be a freak to be better than some of their own talent coming through.

“It is a question I get a fair bit,” he said when asked if he should be playing A-League. “It’s hard to answer.

“But I take it as a compliment and appreciate the way I play and belong there in a way.”

It’s been a testing time doing the hard yards in the VPL. Luckily for Cardozo – who is of Argentine and Uruguayan heritage -  he and his family’s Christian faith have helped sustain him through this period.

The name Cardozo is Aussie football royalty. It would be a pity A-League fans missed out on seeing a Cardozo who, on the evidence of his form this season, deserves a chance. If not, he’s likely to seek offers in Asia or in New Zealand.

Meantime he remains a full-time footballer training on his own while also training at night with Andy Vlahos’s squad in Broadmeadows as they eye a finals campaign.

Cardozo added: “If you really do work for things, then anything’s possible and I could hold my own.”

Meanwhile Hume play away to Melbourne Knights this Sunday at 3pm in the final round of the VPL with the minor premiership still up for the grabs.