The 2023/24 season was a breakout period for Subway Socceroos striker Kusini Yengi.
He signed for Portsmouth in the EFL League One back in July 2023, before scoring on his debut for the club in August.
On November 16, Yengi became Socceroo #638 when he was given his debut off the bench against Bangladesh in a FIFA World Cup qualifier.
He then went to the Asian Cup where he received his maiden Socceroos start and then on March 26 he scored his first goal for his country in a match against Lebanon.
Oh, and after that, Yengi returned to Pompey to help his club side finish league champions and earn promotion back to the EFL Championship for the first time since 2012.
Quite a wild 12 months. But for Yengi, there is more to life than football, and how he spent his off-season break sums that up.
He went across to South Sudan, where his family is from, to catch up with them but also see how he can help to give back to his community.
“It was my first time going back to Africa for I think 10 years, so it was great to see my dad who lives there and meet my two younger siblings that I hadn't met before and their mother, which was really fun and really cool,” he said.
“How he (Ben Yengi, Kusini’s father) cares for his community and tries to give back and be kind to people have had a positive influence for sure, it's very inspiring.”
In 2007, Ben based himself in South Sudan where he has helped to fund and build a medical clinic and a nursery school in the district of Kajokeji.
Kusini himself has now begun to look at ways he can give back to the people of the region.
“There's a few little projects that I'm working on right now with mum and my brother to kind of sort something out in terms of a charity or something or building an astroturf pitch there for people to play,” he said.
“It's part of a process and hopefully over the next year or two, I'll have figured everything out and connected all the dots and have something to show for it.”
Over recent years, there has been more and more African representation within the Subway Socceroos, notably Awer Mabil who was the first of recent times.
“It's great, I think Awer (Mabil) kind of paved the way for all of us and we were all watching him making his mark on the Socceroos,” Yengi said.
“It was inspirational for us and gave us a real sense of we can do it too, watching someone who came from similar areas and similar backgrounds to us, and our families do amazing things.”
He added that it will only continue to inspire future generations of African Australians.
“You're starting to see so many players come through and when one person comes through, the next person gets inspired, and then that person goes and just kind of flows on follows on from there,” he said.
And alongside that, there has been increased representation in the Australia set up with footballers from Adelaide and South Australia.
Yengi said that is in part because they are bread tough down south, and harbour a strong motivation to succeed.
“It might be just due to hard work, and I feel like growing up, there was always this kind of mentality that we felt being South Australian that footballers from the other states thought that they were better than us, and that they were more entitled to things in us,” he said.
“So, it gave us a sense of hunger and want to prove people wrong and to work harder than others and when you get knocked down, just get back up and work harder.”
For the season ahead, Yengi will now be able to keep working hard, this time in the ever-competitive English Championship.