KEY POINTS:
Leo Bertos wishes the Wellington Phoenix had been up and running when he was at high school in the capital.
Not that he's complaining. The All Whites midfielder says he's "living my dream right now".
It's just that he might have avoided some of the heartache and pitfalls
of playing in the UK.
The 26-year-old looks back on his six years as a professional in England as a failure.
He might have played more than 130 league and cup games for six clubs but it wasn't the experience he expected when he left Wellington as an eager but naive 18-year-old.
He didn't really know what to expect and that was half the problem. The chance to play football in England sounds a good idea and scores of young Kiwis head there in the hope of following Ryan Nelsen into the Premiership but Bertos says the reality is quite different.
He started in the Championship with Barnsley but dropped through the leagues before finishing in the Conference (four below the Premiership) with York and then Scarborough.
In three-and-a-half years at Barnsley, he played only 13 games. Each time he felt he was getting close to first-team action, another manager was sacked. There were six in total, all with different ideas and players.
Bertos then played almost 100 games for League Two side Rochdale but couldn't break back into the higher leagues.
A professional can't drop much further than Conference football.
"It was a success getting that first professional contract but I knew for a fact I was good enough to play at a high level over there and still be playing there," Bertos says. "So for me, [my time in England] was a failure.
"If the Phoenix were going on when I was at high school, I wouldn't have had to leave to pursue a football career. It was tough, really tough.
"I decided to drop down a league, play regular first-team football and try to work my way back up to the Championship. It didn't seem to work. I couldn't seem to network and get anything going, any trials, any people to watch me. It was a bit upsetting.
"In the lower leagues, there wasn't much money going around and you had to work on month-to-month contracts. I was organising trials but clubs didn't take it seriously and after you've had that happen to you three, four, five times, I just decided it's enough. I can't do that any more.
"It was getting to the stage where it was, do I carry on doing this or do I go off and pursue a different career? Thankfully, the A-League was up and running and I managed to get a contract with Perth and jumped at it straight away."
Bertos also took to the A-League straight away. In his first season with the Western Australian club, he led the league in goal assists and kept his place in the side even after the rules changed, meaning Kiwis playing for Australian clubs were regarded as foreigners (each club is allowed only four overseas players in their 23-man squad).
He is a player of undoubted skill but, if there is one criticism, it is that he often fails to convert that into goals.
It was inevitable he would become a target for the Phoenix. He was talked about as one before last season if he had been released because of the change to the rule on foreigners.
He had also contemplated a move to the now-defunct New Zealand Knights but baulked when he discovered things were far from rosy on and off the field.
He doesn't see it that way at the Phoenix.
"It's better than I imagined," he says before today's second Pre-Season Cup match against the Queensland Roar.
"I'm really living my dream right now. Playing football in Wellington and being paid for it - who would have thought that would happen? It's the whole package.
"Everything is looking really great. The set-up is amazing, the stadium is unreal and all my family and friends are here. Life is good."
It is not without pressures and expectations. A lot is anticipated of Bertos this season, not only because he is a hometown boy but also because he is expected to provide the attacking flair down the right flank and improve his record in front of goal.
"Coming home, there's always going to be pressure," he says. "People have high expectations of me this year but playing in England has taught me all about that. It's probably the hardest place to become a professional footballer.
"I'm pretty comfortable with that and I'm confident we will make the top four. It's just a matter of what we do when we get there."
