When Nestory Irankunda first made the leap from Adelaide United to Bayern Munich, it was easy to wonder what came next. Such was the excitement surrounding his teenage breakout with the Reds, he'd moved directly from the A-League Men to one of the biggest clubs in the world, bypassing several rungs on the ladder. And when he spent his first year in Europe playing for Bayern's reserves, while also dropping out of several Socceroos squads, it was easy to see how such a huge jump had perhaps left Irankunda at a crossroads.
This was the point wherein so many talented teens, Australian or otherwise, have stumbled. They are the prodigious young talent that bursts onto the scene and captures imaginations, only to be claimed by the meat grinder that is elite European football and discarded, if not outright turned upon, by the hype machine that surrounded them.
At best, it's unfeeling. At worst, it's cruel. But it's the reality of modern football.
Yet a couple of years on from that make-or-break juncture, we're still talking about Irankunda. And we're not doing it as a cautionary tale, either, but as he continues to take strides towards realising his immense potential. There's still plenty of work to do, of course, with challenges still to be overcome and the good timing and fortune that accompanies any kind of rise still necessary. But it's been a big few months.
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Last week, the now-20-year-old officially made the move from Watford to Portuguese giants Sporting CP, coming off the back of a FIFA World Cup in which he became the youngest Australian man to score on football's biggest stage.
After struggling in Tony Popovic's first game in charge of the Socceroos and subsequently being left out of remaining qualifiers, Irankunda has now become a fixture in national team squads and looms as one of the team's most important players for January's AFC Asian Cup. Two years on from playing in the UEFA Youth League, he'll instead be playing in the UEFA Champions League in 2026-27, with a Sporting side that reached the quarterfinals of last season's tournament before being eliminated by eventual finalists Arsenal. He'll be joining a club that has earned a reputation as one of the best developers of talent in all of football, but also one that saw its two-year hold of the Primeira Liga broken by FC Porto last season. This year, the expectation amongst Leões fans will be to return to the summit.