Look at Sasa Ognenovski. Few years ago, he was only playing Victorian League (part-time) and worked as a tradie. Look at him now. Representing Australia. Named best AFC player. Going to a world cup.
Don't let anyone tell you what you can't do.
The Victorian league is not easy at all to play in. And Sasa Ogenovski was playing in the national league at age 21, he then transferred to the Greek first league, suffered an injury, spent two seasons in a Victorian club and was then again in the national league.
I said you need 10,000 hours of practise by 16, not a professional contract by 16, anyway, that figure was if you want to make it to the highest level of football.
I'm not so much deterring you from your task, just trying to make you realise this is an enormous mountain to climb and it takes so much practise to do what the professionals do. I mean you have to understand, in a lot of European and South American countries, the way out of poverty is dribbling a football, these kids work from the moment they are born to play for some of these clubs.
Imagine a bloke who dropped out of school in grade 1 now comes to a university and says, 'I'm going to get 100 in this semester in every subject', that's about as tough as it is.
And you cannot compare Drogba signing his first professional contract at 21, he was in an elite French youth set-up at the time. Yes he was a late bloomer, but he still received and expert football education, something we don't have in Australia, which is why if you're good enough to make it internationally in Australia, you'd have signed a professional contract by 18 with one of the A-League clubs.
I'll put it to you this way, it's a lot more difficult representing Australian national soccer team than getting an ATAR of 99.95, that's for sure.