2026 FIFA World Cup: Socceroos defender Jacob Italiano opens up on tough road to national team debut

Jacob Italiano was once put up in lights alongside PSG superstar Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Real Madrid forward Rodrygo, Argentinian star Thiago Almada, Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones and Scottish playmaker Billy Gilmour among the players set to take the soccer world by storm. That was 2018 and he was 17 at the time, playing as a winger for Perth Glory. Eight years on, Italiano is set to be Australia’s first-choice right wing-back at a World Cup. But the 24-year-old’s path to the national team and the World Cup is testament to development not always being linear. “There were times it wasn’t quite going so well, but that’s all built into the way I am now, how I play now, and I wouldn’t change it for anything,” Italiano told The West Australian in California. The former Inglewood United junior only made his Socceroos debut last October after steady performances in Austria with Grazer AK over the past two years. What preceded that was a half-decade’s worth of toil in the German lower leagues for Borussia Monchengladbach’s reserve team, seemingly out of sight and out of mind. When his contract at Monchengladbach ran out, he almost came home to Australia; instead, Italiano headed for Austria and is now heading to a World Cup. “The tournament hasn’t started yet, but before October it was just a dream and now it’s here, so it is pretty exciting. But now I’m just looking forward to it all starting and wanting to kick things off,” he said. “The move to Austria was to be able to play consistent football over in Europe, and put my best foot forward for the national team, that was my thinking going over there. And it’s all worked out that way, which was a big relief. “There was a bit of interest (from Australia) at the end of my contract in Germany. I was pretty close to coming back, it was definitely a big option for me. “I was definitely considering it, but then Austria came in and I always thought to myself I wanted to try and stick it out as long as possible in Europe.” Italiano made his first-team debut for Glory at 16 as an agile winger whose maturity immediately stood out for Kenny Lowe’s side. While he still counts Perth legend Diego Castro as the best player he has ever played with (“he was embarrassing us in training”), Italiano’s own performances saw Monchengladbach pounce on his signature, and he joined the five-time German Bundesliga winners in 2019. He was just 18 when he moved to a foreign land where he did not speak the language and barely nine months after arriving, a global pandemic hit. “In your mind, it’s all going to go well and then when it doesn’t, you’re competing with yourself, trying to get over it,” Italiano said. “COVID didn’t help as well. That was four or five months just gone out of the time I had there, I was stuck in my apartment alone over in Germany when everyone in Australia, it was all open and perfect. “Everyone was really scared, especially in Germany and around Europe. You’d walk down the street, and people would go to the other side of the road and avoid you, and people were going grocery shopping with full hazmat suits. “I got myself into a routine, changed back to the Australian time zone so I could speak with all my family and friends throughout the night, play PlayStation with them, and then I’d go through one or two runs or workouts throughout the day, and that was pretty much all I could do.” Once the pandemic eased, Italiano was confronted by new battles: injuries and a bout of glandular fever. “It’s all built into what I am now, I have a lot tougher skin, mental toughness from being able to get through that, knowing that I’ve got through it and come out better from it,” he said. Italiano plugged away and made more than 100 appearances for Monchengladbach’s second team, although he never made the jump to a full Bundesliga appearance. “We were in the fourth league, but it was still professional. There’s some big stadiums in the league, sometimes you have 15, 20,000 fans at the stadium,” he said. “It was still a good level, but it wasn’t quite senior football. I was playing with some 17-year-olds when I was 21, so that’s where I wanted to take another step. “I was close a few times, training with the first team and being in and around friendly matches and performing well, but a lot of the times, when I would maybe be able to go for a loan move or a transfer, an injury would pop up or an illness. So the timing of things didn’t quite work out for me.” The A-League Men came calling, but Italiano instead found a home in Grazer, where he has played 50 matches over the past two years and even scored a hat-trick featuring two excellent volleys earlier this year. “I’m loving it, love the city as well, the people — me and my partner really settled there and it shows with the way I’ve been able to perform consistently,” he said. “That was kind of why I went over there, to get consistent minutes, play 90 minutes every week and show what I’m capable of, to try and get into the national team. “It’s all fallen into place.”