Baker left A-League to kick more goals and make more dough

Alec Urosevski’s life revolves around three things: family, football and baking.

“That’s all I’ve ever known,” he says. “Tell me to do anything else, I probably can’t do it. But I can bake bread, that’s for sure.”

In 1998, when he was four years old, his father, Tome, a Macedonian immigrant, opened up a bakery. He still runs it: Alexander’s Bakery, on the Princes Highway in Rockdale. Try the burek; it’s their specialty. That, or the Balkan-style donuts Alec reckons his old man has perfected.

Alec Urosevski is baking up a storm this season in the NPL.Credit: Wolter Peeters

The bakery is where Urosevski grew up. So did his brother and two sisters – they all worked there, making dough out the back or serving customers at the counter, helping out their parents. Even when he was a youth player on the books of Sydney FC, he’d head to the family business straight after training in the morning to help out.

“It’s been my whole life, and I love it,” he says.

Alec Urosevski and Alessandro Del Piero.Credit: Getty

Urosevski never dreamed of being a baker when he was a kid, though. He wanted to be a professional footballer. And he can say he was one, albeit briefly: he made nine appearances in the A-League between 2012 and 2014 for Sydney, his boyhood team, playing alongside the great Alessandro Del Piero, who used to stay back after training to give him tips. “Legend. He was the GOAT,” he says.

Ultimately, it didn’t work out, and he’s had to settle for becoming a superstar of the state-league scene instead. Looking back, Urosevski reckons he was too reserved, too timid around the big personalities in Sydney’s dressing room at that time, and certainly not the more rounded footballer he has developed into today.

“If I’m being honest, my time at Sydney wasn’t the best,” he says.

“The players around me weren’t too supportive, and I just found it tough to be myself, really. Maybe it’s different now – there’s a lot of young boys in the system now – but back then, if you’re a young boy, you’re picking up the balls [after training]. Which I don’t mind, doing that when I’m young, but you can do that in a respectful way. I found it a bit hard. You see some young kids, like Daniel Arzani back in the day, they’re confident, and they’re scoring goals, they don’t care. Sometimes I wish I was a little bit more like that.”

Urosevski could be a professional footballer again, right now, if he wanted. But the fact that he doesn’t is a window into the peculiarities of the Australian game and the unique economic factors that underpin it.

Alec Urosevski became Rockdale’s all-time leading goalscorer this season.Credit: Football NSW

Now 30, Urosevski is a classic late bloomer. He should be playing in the A-League. He is more than good enough. In fact, you could mount a case for him as the most prolific striker currently in Australia. Sure, he only plays for Rockdale Ilinden in the NSW NPL, but there can’t be too many others at any level in this country who are scoring at, on average, roughly one goal per game – or certainly not for as long as he has, which is the past three years, during which time he has become the club’s all-time leading goalscorer.

But last season, when Macarthur FC offered him a short-term contract, he knocked it back. And more recently, he turned away an approach from Brisbane Roar. The 18-year-old version of him would be giving himself a clip over the back of the head if he knew about it, he reckons.

Why? The short answer is that the numbers just don’t add up.

Urosevski would have to step back from his family’s growing business empire. Older brother Roman runs the popular Son of a Baker chain of bakery cafes, and Alec runs the Miranda outlet.

Alec Urosevski.Credit: Wolter Peeters

On a typical morning, Alec will wake at 3am, head to the Kogarah warehouse, and start baking. Once his van is packed with burek, donuts and other breads and pastries, he takes them to the shop, and serves customers from 6.30am until about 10am. That’s when his focus switches to football, and getting his body right for training, which happens four nights per week. In between, if he’s lucky, he’ll spend time with his two young children, Tommy and Bella, and ideally squeeze in a nap. He’s often not in bed until 11pm.

It would be impossible without the understanding of wife Tatiana. “It gets tough on the family. Sometimes they don’t see me all day. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Urosevski says.

Urosevski might not have had the football career he wanted as a kid, but he’s still got it good. He is a Macedonian-Australian who plays for – and captains – a Macedonian-Australian club. They win most weeks. And what they pay him (including a handy goal bonus), together with what he earns from his business ventures, is more than what he would have earned, at least initially, in the A-League – not to mention the lifestyle and family sacrifices he would have to make. Now that A-League clubs are only receiving $530,000 in broadcast distributions a season from head office, it’s hard to blame Urosevski, or any other seasoned player in his position, for not wanting to give all of that up.

“You never know – if I play A-League, you can go to England or something. Or the national team,” he says.

“But it’s hard. I’m not going to sacrifice my wage ... even NPL wages, there’s a lot of players that are on probably the same as A-League, and if you’re living at home, you’re 15 minutes from training ... if it’s the same money [in the A-League] but you’ve got to pay rent in Melbourne [for example], it doesn’t make sense. If I was younger, maybe, and didn’t have kids. But now it doesn’t make sense for me.

“I live a good life. I’m lucky. I’m blessed enough to have my brother to open Son of a Baker. He started all this … my brother’s grown the brand a lot, which gives us the freedom to run the business. Thankfully, it’s successful, and hopefully we can keep going.

“I’m close to my family. That’s more important than anything. I can go around the corner, see my brother, go see my parents. I live close to work, and I love what I do. I’d rather give it to someone else that really wants to be there, because at the end of the day, right now, it’s not my dream to play A-League.”

The A-League’s loss is Rockdale Ilinden’s gain. Urosevski attributes his goalscoring spree over the past few years to two main factors. First, the decision some years ago by ex-coach Branko Culina to convert him from a left-winger into a centre forward. “I played a few games there, and he liked what he saw. It’s probably better for me, the older I get – a lot less running,” he says.

Second, the club itself. The players and staff are like a second family to him, and their style of play suits him down to the ground. Unlike his junior days at Sydney FC, he can be himself. “Dad loves it. He comes Sundays after work, has a few drinks, watches a game, and gives me a bit of shit when I miss. But that’s standard.”

Rockdale doesn’t have a long and proud history of success. They have won the NSW state league title only twice, in 1984 and 2020, but can do it for a third time on Monday night if they get just a point against Sydney FC’s under-23s. It might be mathematically confirmed sooner, if Marconi fail to beat Blacktown City on Saturday night.

“Rockdale is home,” Urosevski says. “It’s always been home. When no one else really wanted me, that’s when they took me in. It’s a good club. They deserve it.”

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