Cosimo Cirillo’s Spanish dream with Pararoos

MILDURA City product Cosimo Cirillo has his eyes set on a return to Spain and one of the world’s most iconic sporting cities with the Pararoos next year.

The 18-year-old goalkeeper for Australia’s senior men’s national football team for athletes with cerebral palsy, acquired brain injury, or symptoms acquired from stroke played for his nation at the 2019 IFCPF World Cup in Sevilla, Spain, this year and next year the side is set to return to the soccer-mad nation.

This time it will be for the 2020 IFCPF Nations Cup in June and July at Sant Cugat in Barcelona, 17km north of the city that is home to FC Barcelona and the famous Camp Nou stadium.

“It’ll be awesome, more fans will come, I think, my parents are looking forward to it if I get selected,” Cirillo said.

“You think of all the great players that have played there. I think just like Sevilla it’s going to be a lot of fans – when you walk the streets …. I’m assuming there’s going to be (Lionel) Messi shirts everywhere.”

But despite the retirement of the Pararoos’ No.1 goalkeeper Christopher Pyne after Saturday’s 5-0 win over Canada in Sydney, Cirillo was not ready to book his flights just yet.

“There’s going to be a couple of camps next year but for now it’s just about relaxing and keeping working hard, hopefully I’ll get the call-up again,” he said.

Cirillo said you got a feel for just how much the sport means for the people of Spain by being there.

“It’s basically like football (AFL) here in Australia, in Sevilla it’s well populated but there’s a huge amount of people that play football,” he said.

“Their clubs, like Sevilla FC and Real Betis, have stadiums everywhere, they have training pitches for their youth, all the different age groups have their different training facilities.

“We got to play at Sevilla FC’s youth academy, just to see that was amazing. I know there’s pitches in Australia like that but Sevilla FC has been around for a long time and they’ve won prestigious awards and to be around that – especially in a football nation – is crazy.”