While most footballers aspire to reach their own targeted career heights, there is another route that is scarcely heard of in the modern game, where a player uses their ability as a means to travel the world.
In the case of Queanbeyan City’s Nico Abot, even the most well-documented football journeymen look amateurish in comparison to the Argentine’s career trajectory, having played in 14 different countries, across 35 senior clubs, and due to this, being dubbed the ‘Football Backpacker.’
Although the 38-year-old has been all over the world, there’s something about playing in Canberra that always seems to bring out the best in his game.
“In Australia, I always feel better here, I don’t know why but I always score a lot of goals,” Abot said.
Having grown up in the small Argentinian city Mar del Plata, Abot was always bound to catch the football bug, a love for the game that is collectively shared nationwide.
“In Argentina, every kid wants [to] be a football player,” he explained. “You play for a club, you play in school, you play on the street, if you watch TV; football, radio football, people in the bar talking about football, it’s life…it’s like a fire for us, like a passion.
“I started to play football at five years old…I don’t really know when I made this click, to know I wanted to be a professional, because I was always working in the moment to be better next year.”
Starting off his career at his local city side Racing Club de Lamadrid, Abot finally made the big move to a professional club, Club Olimpo, where he played for around four years in the second team.
“When I started at Olimpo I felt very well because for two years I was with professional football players,” he recalled. “I played for example with Carlos Roa, he played in the 1998 World Cup as a goalkeeper, when Argentina beat England, he stopped a penalty.
“For me, I was there training penalties with a keeper who played in the World Cup…it’s nice because when you meet some player like this, you try to look a lot at what they do, because they are experienced.”
Coming from a small city in Argentina, Abot knew that if he wasn’t going to play in his home nation, travelling abroad would be his only chance of securing a football career, rather than working at home in another occupation.
“I worked hard to have an opportunity, but for other players with agents, they scored less goals than me but they played, and there I understood, football is business,” he said. “I said, ‘I need to go away because I will not play here’.
“It was very sad for me, but it was a good moment to understand,” he said. “I said, ‘I don’t care if these people don’t do business with me, I will continue to try to live my dream, and that is when I started to travel.”
With one clear goal in mind, to play football for a living, he headed overseas, starting in Costa Rica and Ecuador, before returning to Argentina, where he achieved his first minutes of his senior career in the third and fourth tiers.
However, in 2009, Abot’s career took a steep upward trajectory when he signed with Venezuelan side Zamora FC, a club that at the time were competing in the Copa Sudamericana, a competition he had always dreamed of playing in. Following a 17-minute cameo off the bench in a First Round match, Abot’s ambition was fulfilled, still very early in his football journey.
“It was amazing because the stadium was full…maybe 35 000 people or something like that,” he recalled. “When you’re running to the line, waiting for the referee to make the substitution, you say now is the moment, you have worked for a long time to be there, try to enjoy it.
“Sometimes it is difficult in the moment because you’re just thinking about playing, but after you know, I said I made this dream, and I need to continue.”
The match was made even more special for Abot, as it was broadcast back home.
“They put the match on Fox Sports, and in Argentina, they could watch my game, I knew my family would be watching the game,” he said. “In that moment, a big channel [putting] the match on, I felt like they [were] close to me.”
Succeeding this accomplishment, Abot’s ensuing years of travel each brought with them their own memorable moments, from working in the Latvian top tier under Russian legend Andrei Kanchelskis, to appearing for Bolivian powerhouses Blooming.
As to how these moves came about, there is one key factor that has allowed Abot to follow his dream.
“Connections with people,” he said. “Now because I’m older, some friends who played with me 10 years ago, they are coaches now.
“Many times I call people… I’m not shy, if I need to call 10 teams and say, ‘[do] you need a striker?’, no worries, because it’s my life.
“For that I always say in life you must be a good person, if you are a good person, it doesn’t matter if you score 10 goals or not, in the end you have some connection, for me that is more important.”
Through these relationships he’s made, the Argentine has been afforded these opportunities in many prominent football nations, while moves to more obscure leagues have also featured in Abot’s career path, none more so than his stint in the Gozo Football League, a competition played on an island off Malta.
“In this situation my friend was playing there and said, ‘Nico, the coach told me he is looking for a striker, do you want to come?’” he commented, when questioned on how the move came about. “I said, Malta is a beautiful country near Italy…first division, why not?”
Being a football backpacker, it was only a matter of time before the Argentine landed on Australian shores, signing for Tigers FC ahead of the 2016 NPL season.
“The coach Gabriel Wilk was from Argentina,” Abot explained. “It was nice because in Australia we play only 6 months a year, but in that moment, the championship finished in September and I moved straight away to play in New Zealand, [where] they play from September to March.”
After three seasons with Tigers FC, and one with Gungahlin United, the forward has found a new home at Queanbeyan City, where he is gearing up for the 2024 Capital Premier League (CPL) campaign, off the back of his most productive goal-scoring season yet. Abot attributes his 21-goal haul in 2023 to the belief exhibited by coach and former teammate Goran Josifovski, off the back of a serious injury.
“I was so happy because they called me when I broke my Achilles in Gungahlin, before my surgery,” he said. “When somebody calls you and trusts you before you have a big operation at 37 years old, it must be a big responsibility to say yes, and recover faster.
“I remember a few matches I was unfit for sure, and careful of my Achilles, but because the coach knew me and gave me the confidence, after you [could] see I started to score.”
Although Abot has lived his dream, a career dominated by constant change has often brought with it many challenges that were and remain significantly prevalent throughout his journey.
“It’s hard because you always miss your family, your friends, [for] some important date you are far away,” he said. “But because I decided to have this style of life, I’m not thinking too much about that.
“What I’m always thinking is, my friends and my family are there…and when you go to another country, another city, you make new friends for life, and I think about positive things.”
Nearing the end of his incredible career, Abot has his sights set on potential history.
“I need to play in Africa, because if I score in Africa… maybe I will be the first person to score a goal in every continent,” he said. “Maybe it can be a record, but I need to do it before I retire, to make this dream come true, like a gift for my career.
“Every year I say one more year, and when I finish, I finish, but I need to be sure I gave 100%.”
Words: Sam Watson
