Adelaide United right back Michael Marrone due to play 200th A-League game against Newcastle

Michael Marrone has a quick response when Adelaide United teammates poke fun at his goals record. Now the Reds’ right back is about to add 200 A-League games to his rare scoring feat.

Adelaide United defender Michael Marrone with wife Melody and son Micah, two, on their Adelaide Hills property. Picture: Dean Martin

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Michael Marrone has a quick response when Adelaide United teammates poke fun at his goal scoring record.

“I sit next to Craig (Goodwin) in the changerooms,” laughed Marrone, who found the net in his sole international appearance to equal his lone career A-League strike.

“Whenever he wants to have a crack at me, I always ask him how many Socceroos goals he’s got.

“It’s just a bit of banter, but everyone knows I’ll always go back to that.”

Marrone grabbed the third of Australia’s nine goals in an East Asian Cup qualifying rout of Guam in 2012.

It was a rare moment of personal glory for the unassuming right back, whose team-first attitude had been rewarded with four trophies during his two stints with the Reds.

His consistency and class through a testing football journey had also brought him to the cusp of his 200th A-League game.

“It’s crept up on me,” said Marrone, due to bring up his double ton of appearances against Newcastle Jets on Sunday.

“I remember being the young one and seeing players like (former Adelaide captain) Eugene Galekovic having these milestones and thinking ‘that’s a lot of games’.

“I’m getting there slowly, but I’ve had to work hard for it. It’s been a long grind.”

A career which began aged five at Valley View in Adelaide’s northeastern suburbs, almost never realised its full potential.

Marrone rose through the junior ranks of Adelaide Blue Eagles and Para Hills to earn an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship.

But as fellow graduates Bruce Djite and Nathan Burns landed contracts with Adelaide United in the fledgling A-League, he was forced to cut his teeth at state league level.

“Going through programs like the AIS, you thought you were a good chance to push on from there,” said Marrone, who played for Kingston City in Victoria and Para Hills again.

“Then the A-League started and some players (from the AIS) got picked up, but some players didn’t like myself.

“It probably hit me when I was about 20 or 21, you think ‘I haven’t got that professional contract and I haven’t made that leap like others around me have’.

“At the time I was working for Vodafone and had a full-time job, so I was like ‘what happens now?’”

Marrone’s persistence paid off when he was given a youth team deal with the Reds in 2008.

Michael Marrone in action during Adelaide United’s FFA Cup final win over Sydney FC last year. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images)

He made an unlikely first team debut in Adelaide’s win over Egyptian side Al Ahly at that year’s World Club Cup and his A-League bow against Central Coast a month later.

But after playing 16 matches the following campaign, a glut of experienced signings for United led to him exploring other options.

A deal with defunct North Queensland Fury collapsed, before he joined Melbourne City, then know as Heart.

“I was playing good consistent footy and in two-and-a-half years I missed one game,” Marrone, 32, recalled.

“When I played for United, I went in on one camp with the Socceroos.

“Then I went to Melbourne Heart and I went on another three camps and made my Socceroos debut.

“I got to play with some good players who are still playing for the Socceroos and I was rooming with Aaron Mooy.

“I guess when you’re old, you can look back and say you played with guys like that.”

A season-long stint with Shanghai Shenxin, which Marrone described as “eye-opening”, ended when the Chinese club failed to contact him about returning for his second year.

Adelaide United’s Michael Marrone on his recently purchased Adelaide Hills property with wife, Melody, and two-year-old son, Micah. Picture: Dean Martin

He began training with United under Spanish coach Josep Gombau, initially to keep fit, and re-signed for the club in early 2014, going on to feature in the Reds’ inaugural FFA Cup win.

Marrone played 26 games in Adelaide’s march to the premiership and championship double the next season, after the club had failed to register a win in its opening nine games.

“We weren’t any better than other teams,” said Marrone, who notched his solitary league goal in a Boxing Day win over Wellington Phoenix that campaign.

“But it was just a really good team spirit and there was no cliques.

“We had really good individual players and good leaders, and it just started clicking.

“We were going into games and we knew we were going to win.”

Marrone had overcome his share of challenges.

He ruptured his Achilles tendon in the grand final triumph over Western Sydney, having previously broken his leg with the Reds and fractured his knee cap in China.

The former under-20 international also served a four-match ban after being sent off in the 2017 FFA Cup final loss to Sydney FC for an altercation with a ball boy.

Michael Marrone playing for Para Hills in the SA Premier League in 2008.

“It was not a good time. I think I got stuck on a slow news week because everyone just picked it up and ran with it.

“It was absolute bombardment and then the next week it was gone. It was just a very, very unfortunate series of events.”

The veteran had lost his starting XI berth to Ryan Strain in recent weeks.

But he was still enjoying his football under coach Marco Kurz, having helped the club to its second cup success in October, and hoped to sign a contract extension in the coming months.

Marrone’s hands were full off the pitch as well.

He and wife, Melody, were raising two-year-old son, Micah, while converting a shed into a family home on a 9ha property they purchased in the Adelaide Hills late last year.

“We’ve got water, power and everything we need,” said Marrone, who had borrowed 26 sheep, four miniature ponies and two horses to keep the grass down on the site.

“But there’s so many jobs to do, there won’t be an end point.

“We’re loving it. It’s hard to imagine going back (to city living).”