Words: Matt Dorman
Image: Getty Images

Football folk talk about certain players just ‘knowing where the back of the net is’ when it comes to the art of scoring goals. Mustafa Jafari has that quality.

His goal in Olympic FC’s debut Westfield FFA Cup defeat of Melbourne Knights proved as much, a clever toe-poke to seal a 3-1 victory – his club’s first on the national stage.

But the young striker also knows something even more profound than how to win football matches: the date he arrived in Australia.

“18th of February, 2012,” Mustafa reels off. “I was a refugee in Iran. I have never seen my country.”

He refers to Afghanistan, the nation of his father’s birth. Jafari has not seen his father for over two years. The same is true for his mother and two younger siblings.

“For a long time until now in Afghanistan it has been war,” Jafari says.

“It is a dangerous place to live, my father couldn’t live in Afghanistan. He left and went to Iran as a refugee where he met my mother. My mother and father got married in Iran and I was born there.”

While the neighbouring nation was more stable for the Jafari family, Mustafa knew Iran was still not a place where his dreams could be fulfilled. He had no documents and could not attend school. An unimaginably mature decision was made.

“When I was 16 and a half, I had a chat with my father and I said ‘okay, this is the time I have to leave you’,” he remembers.

“My family didn’t want to accept that I wanted to leave them, but I knew I didn’t have any future in Iran. I left my family and I knew I wanted to come to Australia.

“I had heard about Australia because Australia was helpful to people. In Australia everyone is like equal to each other. Australian people are kind, they’re not going to say ‘you’re Afghan, or you’re or Iran, or you’re black or you’re white.”

To make that life-changing decision at the age of 16 was a grand enough task but making it a reality was another altogether.

First he reached Turkey, where money borrowed from an uncle by his parents paid for a flight to Indonesia. It took two months just to reach the south-east Asian nation, and another three were spent there.

Finally, a paid agent arranged for him to tread a well-worn path by people seeking asylum in Australia.

“I came by boat to Christmas Island,” Mustafa explains. “I was in camp for nineteen days. It is too small, compared to Australia or even Brisbane. I couldn’t go anywhere, not to the beach or anywhere outside the camp.”

It might have been worse considering tragedies which have befallen others who attempted the treacherous trek. The teenager risked his life but, after the Australian government approved his refugee status, he had one to live.

From two and a half months spent confined to a Perth processing camp with five strangers to now living with two friends in the Queensland capital, from speaking no English on arrival to calling for passes from teammates, the Yeronga State High School student is making it all worthwhile.

“My dream is to be a professional soccer player. I’m trying my best,” the striker says.

Instinct is his ally, playing a ‘street style’ developed without the guidance of junior coaching, Jafari adds “I want to show my skill and how I play.”

“I never played for a club in Iran. I started to play soccer with my father. He had a team and taught me what to do. When I was young, I would stand behind the field and watch the game. At half time I would start to play by myself and try to do what the players were doing. I trained by myself.”

Now he trains several times a week with Olympic FC’s youth and semi-professional senior team. Friends watched from the stands as he netted that FFA Cup goal, a strike which sealed the club’s most famous victory in its 47-year history.

He celebrated with trademark acrobatics, before high-fiving youth teammates on the touchline.

“Everyone is good with me,” Mustafa enthuses, “The coaches, the players, everyone. They joke with me and I have lots of fun with them.”

“When I was five or six years old and it was time to go to bed I wanted to go to bed with my ball. When I would put the blanket over my body, first I wanted to put the blanket over my ball because it’s not going to be seen. I thought like that. I’m in love with soccer.”

Mustafa has hopes of becoming a professional in the sport and his coaches believe in his talent. University is also down the track. But above all his wishes to see his family, with whom he has only recently had a chance to speak.

“They are happy, but they miss me. I miss them too. I want to see them, I haven’t seen them for two and a half years.”

The night following his historic goal, Olympic covered the costs of a return trip to Sydney after the talented attacker was invited to train with the National Youth League team of A-League club Central Coast Mariners.

Everybody at the club is only too happy to help when it comes to Mustafa Jafari. He hopes to return the favour.

“I came here to make my future better. If I could make my future good, I can help everyone. That’s my goal,” he concluded.