The junction of the Ovens and Kings rivers is a brow-beaten AFL heartland, which despite boasting a population little over 18,000, is the proud home of three Aussie rules football clubs.

Such are the depths at which AFL courses through Wangaratta’s blood, the city even asserts its own sectarian sporting rivalry, an Old Firm for the ‘Gatta, between the historically catholic Wangaratta Rovers and protestant North Wangaratta.

But in contrast to the city’s proud rurality and backbone ocker culture, Wangaratta has provided unexpected figures of note: post-punk, gothic icon Nick Cave, Filipino pop star Anne Curtis and, perhaps most unusually, one of Australia’s most exciting ‘soccer’ prodigies, Sebastian Pasquali.

“Seb always brought his football to school,” Pasquali’s father, Tony, told Ajax Showtime in 2017.

“Why? Because his classmates didn’t have a ball. If others didn’t want to play with him — football wasn’t that popular in Australia back then — he trained on his own.

“When he got home from school, he’d often lost his football. It ended up on the roof all the time.”

Like many Australian footballers, Pasquali’s unlikely path was burgeoned by his Italian heritage; his father speaks about football with the inherent love that now burns within his son.

But Pasquali’s dedication is a little more unique. By 10-years-old, he was captaining an u/13 side at the Australian National Championships. By 16, he was scoring a winning penalty against Juventus.

As Australia clamours wholeheartedly into a globalised era, the Aussie battler, underdog mentality may be slowly fading from the national sporting psyche. Despite increased attention and resources, it’s rarer that Australian footballers upset a world power today, than it was two decades ago.

So when a 16-year-old debutant enters for Melbourne Victory against 34-time Serie A Champions Juventus, dazzles with a flamboyant array of flicks and tricks, plays a crucial role in one of the more attractive goals his club has ever scored, then tucks away the winning penalty in a final shootout – friendly or no friendly, they’re going to make a few waves.

Yet within three months of that cold July night and after just 29 minutes of A-League football, Pasquali was gone. Melbourne Victory fans left anxiously holding on to that brief MCG cameo as slim proof he was ever really here.

Three years later, not much has changed. The now slightly lankier 19-year-old retains the same boyish looks and despite joining the world’s most famous youth academy, those 29 minutes are the only first team football Pasquali’s ever played.

“When Seb was young we talked about Ajax because of the link between Barcelona and Cruyff’, Tony laughed.

“I think it was hard to step back from the first team in Melbourne to a youth team in Amsterdam. Seb played almost no games during the 2016/17 season because of paperwork, despite the fact Ajax did everything they could.

“They helped us to find our home. Seb came in November — in the middle of the season — and that was not that easy.

You have to learn almost everything and the boys did not accept him fully yet, especially because they have — deep inside — their competitive attitude.

“You are their competition.”

Talented footballers who suffer transitioning from a big fish in a little pond should look at the travails encountered by young Australian footballers. Pasquali morphed from a little fish in a little pond to a practically inexistent herring in a giant Dutch canal.

Speaking no Dutch and with next-to-no professional experience, Pasquali was thrust into the cut-throat world of European football.

17 players were cut or loaned from the Godenzoden (Sons of the Gods) last season; Pasquali was one of 18 U/19s who were brought up through Jong Ajax's ranks. Next season, another team of hopeful young boys will be brought through, and another squad of shattered young men will be discarded.

There are moments of optimism; for every 17 of Pasquali’s peers that unceremoniously depart, there’s a shining-blonde defender like Matthias de Ligt, who was almost rejected by Ajax's youth team, but eventually joined the same season as the Australian. Three years later and the 19-year-old is one of the highest-regarded talents in the world, boasting 61 appearances for Ajax and 13 for the Dutch national side.

But he is the exception. In this environment, excelling is barely an option. Most footballers are focusing on survival.

“The first team at the moment are doing really well with a maximum age of something ridiculous, below 23; they’re very successful in the Champions League so far,” Pasquali told The Daily Football Show in October last year.

“We train a lot and that doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to produce amazing players but that helps, the amount of hours you’re able to train with other very talented players.

“The coaches are able to get the very best out of you, all the while using the very best facilities. That combined gives players all the tools they need to be able to reach their maximum potential.”

After three years with Jong Ajax, Pasquali’s ‘potential’ has shifted remarkably. The 19-year-old made nearly 30 appearances across four competitions last season, including seven in the Eerste Divisie (the Dutch second division, which Ajax’s youth team won).

These statistics seemingly kept Pasquali on track to reach lofty, Harry Kewell-esque expectations, but the boy who left Australia a flashy attacking midfielder is now playing largely as a centreback. And even that isn’t guaranteeing game-time.

After a phenomenal run at the beginning of the season featured the 19-year-old in six out of eight matches, Pasquali’s defensive switch appeared to have paid dividends. At least, of course, if the 176-centimetre Australian wants to be a centreback.

But then disaster struck, in the form of a 4-3 loss to Utrecht’s U/21s. Pasquali played the entire match at centrehalf, and hasn’t played a single minute of the club’s nine games since. For six of those matches, Pasquali hasn’t featured in the squad.

What’s next for Wangaratta’s greatest footballing export is less clear than ever. Bar the A-League comfort blanket that, as Danny De Silva can attest, often doesn’t fit quite as snugly second time around - the cut-throat world of modern football has little sympathy for 19-year-olds with no first team experience.

But, even if the Ajax conveyor belt sucks Pasquali in, chews him up and spits him out; it will at least ready him for the unforgiving world of modern football.

In the meantime, like his peers beckoning from places as similarly isolated from football’s elite as Morocco, Burkina Faso and South Africa, Pasquali has come too far to give up now.

“I know that when I’m ready, I’ll get my chance in the first team,” he said. “I’ve just got to keep focused and keep giving my best every day.

“I know I’ll get my chance.”