Schoolboy Mohamed Toure, the A-League’s youngest goalscorer was gutted when he had to miss sports day
Mohamed Toure’s history making A-League goal had a huge impact on his academic life, but he was shattered to miss his school’s Sports Day.
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Mohamed Toure’s history making debut A-League goal had a huge impact on his academic life but missing his school’s sports day due to his Adelaide United training commitments flustered the 15-year-old.
Now his Underdale High School teachers are sacrificing their precious spare time in a bid to keep Mohamed well educated aside from football as overseas talent scouts circle for the prodigy.
Josh Hilditch – a PE, football teacher and student counsellor – says Mohamed continues to remain grounded, his education marries the football curriculum which was started by Zoran Maricic in 2003.
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Rod del Nido took charge of the football program in 2012 until the end of 2016 before Natalie Zuccon managed the program in 2017.
“What I really loved about Mohamed, he still wanted to be at the school sports day but he couldn’t he had to leave for the Western Sydney game,’’ Hilditch said.
“And he was missing a baseball session with me, he was gutted that he wasn’t going to be with his mates.”
Adelaide United’s Olyroo Al Hassan Toure, 19, – Mohamed’s older brother – was also educated at the school.
He was also studying the soccer program along with Croydon Kings’ Hosine Bility who signed a five-year deal with Denmark’s FC Midtjylland last year.
Mohamed’s younger brother Musa Toure, 14, is also a student at the school and played for Croydon Kings before becoming a member of the state’s national training centre elite system.
“We make sure Mohamed is doing his core subjects, literacy and numeracy, and he is here for afternoon lessons after Adelaide United training in the morning,’’ Hilditch said.
“Natalie Zuccon gives up her time after school to help for one-on-one lessons with him.
“She did the same with Al Hassan a couple of years ago, helped with his assignments.
“We’re never going to say look at Mohamed Toure, we produced him.
“We offer our students football, but we’re trying to offer everything else around that, so they can be gracious, humble and so they have a life outside of football too.
“We were a bit in awe (when he made his debut and later scored) and we thought it was all going to blow up thinking Mohamed was going to walk into school with that swagger and nothing else matters.
“He has a lot of good people around him, his parents, Bruce Djite at Adelaide United, his brothers, his friends, he deserved the opportunity but also knows how lucky he is.”
Hilditch is also passing on his valuable football experience to Mia Kasperski, 15, from Salisbury Inter women’s club, Zimbabwe-born Croydon Kings attacker, Chicco Nyirenda, 16, and Olympic’s Alex Tsimopoulos, 16.
Hilditch, 40, won SA’s Charlie Caruso medal during his time at Blue Eagles and played for Enfield before embarking on a journey which took him to playing football in England for Harrow and in Germany for SV Erlenbach.
Hilditch said for $100 extra plus the normal school fees – listed as $640 – students can study the huge global football industry as a subject which Mohamed enjoys immensely.
“School is very important,’’ Mohamed said.
“You finish your football career and you have a long time to live, if you don’t have the foundation and education you could be in trouble, you may not know what to do in life.”
Nyirenda wants to earn a professional contract but also claimed “my parents said “you don’t go to school, you don’t play soccer which is good,’’ as Kasperski has aspirations of playing for Adelaide United.
“School is important so I can do basic things before the football stuff like managing finances and all of that,’’ she said.
“After my football career I’d to have other options.”
Tsimopoulos is also aiming high in the game after being inspired by his classmate Mohamed.
“I look up to him I know, if he gets there, I can get there too,’’ he said.