James Troisi became the poster boy of Australian sport when he nailed the winner to give the Socceroos the Asian Cup against South Korea

IT hasn’t been a bed of roses for James Troisi or his parents.

JAMES Troisi’s rise to the top of the game is herculean.

He became the poster boy of Australian sport when he nailed the extra time winner to give the Socceroos the Asian Cup after a 2-1 win over South Korea in Sydney last weekend, but it hasn’t been a bed of roses for James or his parents.

Father Alby and mother Stacia Troisi were just two weeks from losing their Adelaide home to debt collectors as teenage James was cutting his soccer teeth in England after they took a chance more than a decade ago.

A legal fight with SA soccer federation authorities also threatened to derail James’ fledgling career when they wanted him blocked from signing for England’s Newcastle United a decade ago.

But from humble beginnings when James kicked his first competitive soccer ball with the Flaxmill primary school team in the southern suburbs of Adelaide he is now the toast of Asia.

“I first fell in love with the game because of my family,’’ James said.

“I’ve got an Italian/Greek background and normally for them football is the No. 1 game.”

His first game was when he was just six years old.

James trained once a week and played school soccer on Saturdays.

“When he first got on the park you could see he had an eye for that ball and he looked liked he had played the game for 10 years,’’ Alby said.

“You could tell he had it in him, the ball stuck to his foot the first time he played and the amount of work he did, he ran all day long and we always saw him smiling while he played.

“And we’d tell him to go to bed we could hear the ball hitting the wall while we were in the lounge room watching TV.”

But if it wasn’t for Italian superstar Roberto Baggio’s 1994 FIFA World Cup performance when James was just six years old the Adelaide-born Asian Cup winner may have never been inspired to make it as a professional.

“Baggio is a magician. I took a liking to him, I’ve never met him but I really want to,” James said.

“I named my dog after him, he was a Jack Russell but he dog died when he was 17 last year.”

When James turned 10 it changed the Troisi family’s life forever.

James was slotted into Adelaide City’s under 10 C grade squad and that team didn’t have a coach.

Alby put up his hand.

James, however, wasn’t satisfied with the two nights a week training and that’s when Alby had the thought of running a soccer academy.

“I jokingly said to James “if you wake me up at six o’clock in the morning I’ll give you more training,’’ Alby said.

“I thought he never would and from that Monday he was near my bed calling me; ‘dad, let’s go’ and it never stopped.”

Alby then started the Burning Ambition soccer academy where James and other boys trained five nights a week with West Torrens Birkalla at Camden.

The academy then based itself at MetroStars’ home at Klemzig before Adelaide City took the budding stars on board.

“There was 10 sessions a week, get up in the morning, go to school and then training in the afternoon,’’ James said.

“We got a lot of stick for doing it, like you’re going to get fatigued and burnt out.

“It’s true if you don’t know what you’re doing.

“We did a lot of cross training with Vince Palumbo like stick fighting, martial arts, we had dietitians, sports psychology.”

The academy boys played games for Adelaide City under then underage boss Jim Carbone.

Long serving club administrator Charlie Capogreco gave the youngsters a chance to play regular weekly football with Adelaide City after hiring Thebarton Oval as its main base.

And in 2003 through the good work of organiser David Mazzone the academy took 17 boys to Europe for a three week tour.

The boys played games against the academy sides of Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea, Walsall and Holland’s Ajax.

“We weren’t disgraced and we even beat Chelsea’s academy team,’’ Alby said.

“We went back to England in 2004 with about eight boys and this time it was trials.

“James got called back to Newcastle and four boys got called back to Europe.”

The family then decided to take out a line of credit and shift to England when James won a scholarship with Newcastle in 2004.

“It was a great opportunity but tough for us financially,’’ Alby said.

“But because of his (James’) professional contract it saved our house.

“James was earning about 100 pounds a week with the scholarship, I got an accounting job for an architectural store and Stacia worked at Fenwick (department store).”

James was also studying and when he earned his first professional Newcastle contract the entire family breathed a little easier financially.

“I earned about 1500 pounds per week which was back then about $4000, from 2008,’’ James said.

“It was the first step — I still had a lot of work to do. I was training with the first team and reserves and I was training week in week out with players like Michael Owen.”

“We had to go overseas. There was nothing for me here. The A-League hadn’t started.

“But at Newcastle we also had trouble. The (SA) federation wouldn’t release me, we were two days away from going to court before the case was dropped.”

But James was in good hands at Newcastle given Sam Allardyce, Kevin Keegan and Peter Beardsley were just three of his coaches.

Keegan made the call to release James, and although the England legend wanted the Adelaide-born striker to stay he made it clear that making the first grade would be tough given the club had multi million dollar players on the books.

James then made a move to Turkish football on a free transfer after the Newcastle and Liverpool legend waived the training compensation fee which at that point would have cost his new Turkish club more than $400,000.

But after having success with Kayserispor and Gençlerbirliği, Juventus — one of the biggest clubs in the world — came calling.

He was then signed on a co-ownership deal with Atalanta in the Italian Serie A with James making his debut in 2012 at Bergamo.

Juve bought his contract outright before he went on loan to Melbourne Victory in 2013.

That’s when Alby and Stacia and young son Isaac returned to Adelaide.

“I was still contracted to Juve — one of the biggest clubs in the world,’’ James said.

“Ange Postecoglou (former Victory coach and now Socceroos boss) asked me to come back and told me it would give my national team hopes a big push and looking back it was a fantastic move.”

Now Alby, Stacia and Isaac haven’t gone back to Europe to live with James after he went on loan to Belgium’s Zwulte Waregem.

“It’s another phase of our lives,’’ James said.

“Isaac wants to become an actor, he went to Hollywood and has done well and he has started high school.

“But Juve want me to stay in Europe, I’m contracted until 2016, we’ll see where the game takes me.”

ends