‘I know I’ll prove you wrong’: The shortest Socceroo is ready to make new doubters look silly

Josh Nisbet is used to being overlooked. It happened every weekend when he was a kid, when opposition players and coaches would shoot a glance his way and assume they were in for an easier day at the office, just because of his height.

It happened some more when he was trying to get his break as a professional footballer, and kept getting knocked back for the same reasons.

That was until the Central Coast Mariners offered him a contract five years ago. Fast-forward to last season: the Mariners put together one of the best-ever campaigns by an Australian club, winning an unprecedented continental treble – and Nisbet was the heartbeat of their midfield, claiming the Johnny Warren Medal as the A-League’s best player. He also won his first Socceroos cap.

And yet, the doubts persist.

At 25, Nisbet decided the time was right to test himself overseas. But you can’t test yourself if you don’t get an opportunity. And for the most part, nobody wanted to give him an opportunity because they thought – wrongly, as A-League fans now know – that his 160-centimetre frame would not stand up to the rigours of a so-called higher level of football.

“When I was looking at my options in Europe, it was a little bit like that: I’m gonna have to prove myself again,” Nisbet says.

“[My agent] would come back to me and say, ‘Look, this club, they like you, and you’ve proved yourself in the A-League ... but they’re worried about if you can prove yourself in a league they regard as higher. They’ll keep an eye out, and they’re looking at you, but I don’t think they’re going to make an offer.’ And that turned out to be the story for a fair few clubs.

“It’s just a bit of doubt about my height, and whether physically I’ll be able to compete. It’s just going to be proving those reservations wrong again.

“A few people said to me, ‘It’s no different to what you’ve always done. So why stop now?’”

When it emerged that Ross County in Scotland were prepared to take a chance on him, eyebrows were raised, both at home and abroad. The local doubters questioned whether he would be better off staying in the A-League than heading to a club like that, who only just dodged relegation last season and aren’t exactly known for playing a sumptuous style of football.

The foreign doubters suggested he’d be eaten alive by the rough-and-tumble, take-no-prisoners vibe of the Scottish Premiership.

Nisbet loves hearing things like that.

“I thought what I’ve done [in the A-League] would change a lot of the opinions,” he says.

“But there’s also that side of me that goes, ‘OK, you can think that, but I know I’ll prove you wrong.’

“I’m excited for it. It’s a new set of people that don’t know really much about me who, once again, are going know a lot about me, hopefully. I feel like the style really suits what people don’t believe in me.”

With endorsements from Socceroos teammates Harry Souttar and Jackson Irvine, who both once played for Ross County, and a strong vote of confidence from Don Cowie, the manager who brought him in and told him he didn’t care how tall he was, Nisbet has dived straight into life at his new club. He made his debut off the bench last week, in a 6-0 hiding against Rangers at Ibrox, and made his first start at home to Aberdeen at the weekend.

This week, though, he’s focusing on his other big challenge: cracking the Socceroos.

That he received a call-up for Thursday night’s World Cup qualifier against Bahrain on the Gold Coast, despite having such little football under his belt, suggests he has another admirer in coach Graham Arnold.

But being in the squad is one thing, and getting on the park quite another. Central midfield is arguably Australia’s most stacked position, with a level of depth that means Nisbet is at long odds to start at Cbus Super Stadium or carve out a regular role in the team when there are the likes of Irvine, Connor Metcalfe, Keanu Baccus and Aiden O’Neill in front of him, and with Ajdin Hrustic, Alex Robertson and Riley McGree not even in this squad.

But Nisbet likes long odds.

“The most important thing for me is to keep battling and fighting for the position and staying fit,” he says. “As long as I keep getting the call, I’m always going to be jumping on the plane. It’s nice to know that the coach has a lot of faith in me.”

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