It was a big statement to make - he was an unknown quantity, an Argentinian playmaker that had barely heard a thing about the A-League. 
 
He was still sure though.
 
At 24 years old, he'd already had his fair share of ups and downs in his career in South America, and he saw Australia as a fresh slate - an opportunity he would embrace and give everything he had.
 
"I achieved a lot in Adelaide," he says, smiling. "Of course, I won the Johnny Warren Medal in my first year and I am proud of that.
 
"But I loved that squad. I was in the right moment at Adelaide United."
 
Marcos is a big believer in fate. After a few failed attempts by Adelaide United to lure the Argentinian from his homeland to Australia, he is adamant that when he did finally accept, the players around him at the time played a big part in his instant success.
 
"The Team of the Decade was announced a few weeks ago and I was named alongside Travis Dodd, Mathew Leckie, Cassio, Sergio Van Dijk, Eugene Galekovic - they were all part of the team in the year I won the medal."
 
He adds: "No one player is anything without the players around him."
 
The Marcos Flores football story, like any good book, is told to me in chapters, each with an underlying theme - that he was, and still is, a boy with a dream.
 
While he always loved football, growing up as the son of a wealthy doctor meant it felt natural for Marcos to aspire to be just like his 'Padre' - delivering babies for a living.
 
"He said to me, 'You want to be a doctor? Let's go," Marcos recalls.
 
"We drove 20 minutes to the hospital, arrived and put our gowns and masks on and my father said to the pregnant lady 'Excuse me, you don't mind if we have a student with us today because my son - he wants to become a doctor.
 
"So he looked at me and said: 'You are going to see everything now'."
 
Less than 10 minutes later, Marcos Flores' big dream of becoming a doctor was abandoned.
 
"My Dad was so calm, so professional. There was blood everywhere, the lady's husband was freaking out and I couldn't handle it," he says.
 
"I told my Dad 'I have to go!' and quickly got out of there," he says, laughing.
 
Growing up in a privileged family meant that Marcos had more opportunities than most kids from his hometown of Reconquista - a tiny city famous for being the birthplace of Football legend, Gabriel Batistuta.
 
"Anything I wanted to do - my parents always told me to follow my dreams," he explains. "And because I liked to be creative, I thought I might like to write or travel. I wanted to do something artistic with my life."
 
Of the many dreams that a teenage Marcos Flores considered pursuing, one thing that had remained a constant in his life since he was a small boy was football.
 
"Every minute of my spare time I spent at the park playing football," Marcos says, "but I didn't really know I could make it a career."
 
"My father would come see me play games and people would say to him, 'Your son, he plays good football', and so he asked me seriously one day if I wanted to do it professionally.
 
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