Former Melbourne Victory and Macedonia defender Daniel Georgievski has explained how he once found his way to Europe, and stared down Mohamed Salah and other global names.
When his then-club Steaua Bucuresti met Swiss outfit Basel in the UEFA Champions League late in 2013, Georgievski swapped shirts with then 21-year-old winger Mohamed Salah.
The Egyptian has since become one of the planet’s most prominent footballers, having made his way to Liverpool via Chelsea and Italian clubs Fiorentina and Roma.
Salah scored in a victorious Champions League final in 2019, spearheaded the Reds to their first league title in 30 years, and holds the Premier League scoring record for a single season.
“I had no idea,” Georgievski laughed on SEN’s The Global Game.
“I asked my mum ‘can you go check in my room which jersey I changed with Basel?’
“That was the Champions League season when he scored both home and away against Chelsea and they bought him straight away.”
When the Romanian champions met Jose Mourinho’s team, it was a bloodbath.
Georgievski marked German forward Andre Schurrle, who has also represented Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund, and assisted Mario Gotze’s winner in the 2014 FIFA World Cup final.
“Mate, he tore me one,” Georgievski grimaced.
“I hate repeating it. It was a game when Mourinho had lost two games in the Premier League and being Chelsea, there was a lot of (rumours) that he was going to get fired.
“We were quite cocky, we were doing well in the league and they just shredded us four-nil at home.
“I scored an own-goal, Schurrle assisted twice, it was all my fault. I got subbed off in the 60th minute and 50,000 fans all booed me off the pitch.
“Happy days!”
Despite his talents having been recognised in Europe, the full-back never entertained the prospect of playing for the Socceroos.
“They had no idea I existed,” he recalled.
“(If they did, it was), only because someone from SBS back then had called me when we were in the Champions League.
“It was only myself and Mark Schwarzer that were Australian-born players and they had never heard of me.
“They said ‘mate, who are you?’ and I said ‘I’m just a kid from Blacktown trying to figure out football.’ That was pretty much the only communication I had with anyone in Australia.”
Georgievski eventually made his way down under; he signed for Melbourne Victory in 2014, and would spend the next seven years in the Australian top flight.
A combative, right-footed defender who was often deployed at left-back under Kevin Muscat, he played in a premiership-championship double in his first season at Swan Street.
In 2017 he was named the Joe Marston Medallist as the best player afield in Melbourne’s Grand Final loss to Sydney FC, his final game in navy blue before he moved to Newcastle.
He made it back to the decider with the Jets only to lose to his former club, and went on to represent Western Sydney Wanderers and Melbourne City before he retired.
His family were grateful to have him home after eight years in Europe, but they weren’t pleased with where he signed.
“My cousins all rocked up (to a function) with Wanderers jerseys, pushed me to the side and said hello to everyone else,” he laughed.
"I hadn’t seen them for a year and a half! I did get them across to Victory at the time, they said ‘we’re Georgievski supporters.’
“I did end up going to Wanderers, which they all loved.”
Born in Blacktown, Georgievski started with Marconi in Sydney’s west, where former Italy striker Christian Vieri and a number of Socceroos began their own journeys.
Having planned to pitch his talents to overseas clubs, the limited communications infrastructure of the time makes for a charming story in retrospect.
“I had a home video my mum made during the games in the youth, and we sent it over to my uncle (in Croatia),” Georgievski remembered.
“He knew a coach in the national U21 team. He said ‘come over, we’ve got a trial game’ and I did pretty good.
“A month later we had a tournament for the Euros, I actually performed quite well and this manager called my dad and said it’s either Hajduk Split and Dinamo Zagreb.
“I had no idea who was who. (Dinamo) called me on a Friday, said ‘jump on a flight on Sunday and you’ve got a trial game on Wednesday.’
“That was pretty much it. I said to my mum ‘I’ll see you in two weeks or I’ll see you in about four months…’ and then I was there for eight years!”
Just 18 at the time, the defender soaked up the education the Croatian giants could offer him.
“I trained from time to time with the first team, but it was twice a day, five days a week, game on a Saturday,” he recalled.
“That was me for a whole year. There was nothing else. Train, sleep, train, sleep. It was like a university of football.
“Dinamo Zagreb at that time had Luka Modric and Eduardo da Silva, so they had (built) something that was really good, and they saw something in me.”
A change of coach in Zagreb resulted in Georgievski’s release; he would never make a senior appearance for Dinamo.
He would spend the next five seasons with smaller Croatian clubs Međimurje and Šibenik; the latter was competitive in the Prva HNL, but it came with a catch.
“There was just financial… chaos, is the polite word,” he explained.
“Not getting paid for twelve months was great, but I did get the opportunity to play for Macedonia, and because of that level, Steaua Bucuresti called.”