Mass mania had already gripped in Australia but the young man at the centre of the storm was intent on fashioning the fairytale ending. The first half of the Asia Cup final on 31 January in Sydney was almost up when Massimo Luongo took two silky touches outside the South Korea penalty area before crashing a low shot into the corner of the net.
For Luongo, the previously unheralded Swindon Town midfielder, it was the crowning moment of a glorious three-week period. Australia went on to beat South Korea in extra time – it was their first Asia Cup triumph – and Luongo, with two goals and four assists, was named as the player of the tournament. “He’s the David Beckham of Australia now, is Mass,” Mark Cooper, the Swindon manager, said.
Luongo smiles. The former Tottenham Hotspur trainee is sitting in a quiet corner of a coffee shop in Swindon and he is looking forward to his club’s League One play-off semi-final first leg at Sheffield United on Thursday night. The hysteria of the Asia Cup and the Socceroos’ journey into history seem a long way away.
“I just found the Beckham comment funny,” Luongo says. “Maybe if the manager had compared me to someone in my exact position … but I think he meant the pin-up boy of Australia. I took it in my stride. I enjoyed being the pin-up boy for Australia for a bit. I like being the face. I’ve come from nowhere and then … It’s nice.”
The 22-year-old had not expected to start in Australia’s first group game against Kuwait. Nobody had expected him to start. But the coach, Ange Postecoglou, gave him the opportunity, ahead of Mark Bresciano, whom Luongo describes as “a legend in Australia”, and, despite an early wobble, he quickly found his groove.
“I had an absolute beast for the first 10 minutes; I was terrible,” Luongo says. “I kept trying things and it wasn’t coming off. And then Kuwait scored. I got the ball at the kick-off and ran past a few players and, after that, I got my confidence up. I set up the equaliser for Tim Cahill and then I scored. I got the man of the match and that gave me a good foundation for the rest of the tournament.
“Everything changed for me after the first game. I was all over the place … papers, everywhere. The media attention was just crazy. I’ve never had that before. It was in my head: ‘How am I going to deal with it? Will it affect me for the next game?’ But it didn’t. I had an even better game in the next game.”
Luongo has not been back to Australia since the tournament. There was precious little time for celebration or drinking in the adulation before he was on the long-haul flight back to England. He would play the 90 minutes of Swindon’s 2-0 home win over Barnsley on 7 February.
There was, however, a glimpse into his new-found fame during a recent break in Ascoli – the home town of his Italian father, Mario. Luongo’s mother, Ira, is of Indonesian heritage and he himself was born in Sydney. “I was just like a local celebrity in Ascoli,” Luongo says. “I didn’t realise at all. I was walking on the street and people noticed me. They have a communal hall, where the local football club is and all the old members go, and there is a picture of me up in there. They made a big deal about it.”
It has been a frenetic 12 months or so for Luongo, which began with his surprise inclusion in Postecoglou’s squad for the World Cup finals in Brazil. Although he did not play, as Australia departed at the group stage after defeats by Chile, Holland and Spain, the experience was fortifying.
Luongo has enjoyed an excellent season at Swindon – he was named in the Professional Footballers’ Association’s League One team of the year – and bigger clubs are considering a summer move for him. Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, West Bromwich Albion and Queens Park Rangers have made inquiries, together with clubs in mainland Europe. There is little doubt that a strong showing in the play-offs would reinforce his value, which Cooper has put at £5m. “Opposition managers all say that Mass is way too good for this level and they’re right,” Cooper has said.
Luongo has been quoted as saying that the summer would most probably be the right time for him to move on, although this went down predictably badly with a section of the Swindon support. “I think I was just being ambitious,” Luongo says. “I want to play at the highest level and do the best that I can do. That’s all I’m going to say now.”
The ambition has long burned inside Luongo, ever since he was scouted at the age of 13 by David Magrone, who now works for QPR at the top of their recruitment department. Magrone would set up a youth academy in Sydney and Luongo trained there with him for three years. Magrone became his mentor and the plan was always to get Luongo to a European club. Luongo has worked his socks off for the best part of 10 years to become an overnight sensation.
“I started at Dave’s academy when I was 14 going on 15 and I’d train there before school every morning between 5.45 and 7.30,” Luongo says. “I’d also train after school with my club. I played for St George Saints, APIA Leichhardt and, later on, Sydney Olympic and because I went to a private school, I had afternoon training with my school team, as well. I had to do three trainings a day and I had two games on the weekends so, sometimes, I couldn’t walk in the mornings. I was struggling on Monday mornings.”
Magrone reached out to Tim Sherwood, the then Tottenham youth coordinator, whom he knew through a mutual friend and he secured a trial at the club for his protege. Luongo impressed and Sherwood recommended that Tottenham sign him. After a dash to secure an Italian passport – to which Luongo was entitled through Mario – and a struggle through masses of red tape, he officially joined in January 2011.
The early months were hard. “I didn’t blink an eyelid leaving home at a young age because from 14 I’d got it into my head that I was going overseas,” Luongo says. “But once I was at Tottenham, it was tough. I got put in digs by myself and I was on my own because I wasn’t close to the family at all. There was loneliness. The London boys had their own little gang, they stayed together and my digs were quite far away. I’d just try and get back after training as soon as possible to Skype my family and friends in Australia.”
Luongo made his one appearance for Tottenham under Harry Redknapp in a Carling Cup tie at Stoke City in September 2011. The evening ended in heartbreak when he missed the decisive penalty in the sudden death shootout and, after André Villas-Boas had replaced Redknapp in July 2012, Luongo found that his face no longer fitted.
“I got shipped to Ipswich on loan, I was there for a few months [until October 2012] and when I came back it felt like I got forgotten about a little bit,” Luongo says. “Boys I had been playing ahead of in the reserve team were training up with the first team more than I was or, if someone got injured, there were boys who were getting picked before me.”
Luongo, though, has got back on track at Swindon. He joined them on loan for the final weeks of the 2012-13 season, when the club lost in the League One play-off semi-final to Brentford on penalties (Luongo did not take one). He returned there on a fresh loan at the start of last season and Swindon paid £400,000 to make the deal permanent in September 2013.
“The Premier League is really big in Australia and a lot of my mates are Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United,” Luongo says. “The Championship and League One just don’t get brought up at all and when I made my move from Tottenham to League One, everyone questioned it a little bit: ‘What’s he doing that for?’ But I know that I made the right decision.”
