World Cup stories: From Nike's The Chance to the 2018 World Cup | OneFootball

It’s over 10,000 miles from Griffith, Australia, to London. 10,378 to be exact.

That’s the journey a 17-year-old Tom Rogic made to launch his career in football as he saw off 75,000 hopefuls from all around the world to join the Nike Football Academy.

Most who go on to make it in the game are spotted or have successful trials with top professional clubs when they are in their teen years at the latest but Rogic’s path to international football couldn’t have been more unique.

He was training with the Central Coast Mariners before entering Nike’s competition, The Chance, in 2011.

At the time, the A-League club attracted around 7,000 fans a week and had few players of note; only Mathew Ryan, now Brighton and Hove Albion goalkeeper, has gone on to enjoy a decent amount of success on a worldwide level.

After seeing off the vast majority of the 75,000 candidates, Rogic was one of 100 players invited for the finals in London. A three-day trial saw Arsène Wenger and Guus Hiddink help select just eight winners. Rogic was one of them, earning a year-long contract with the Nike Football Academy.

“The Chance gives young players around the world the opportunity to showcase their talent, enhance their game, and offers the ultimate dream, the chance of becoming a professional player,” Wenger said.

“The eight players who have won their place at the Nike Academy demonstrated great technical ability and dedication to succeed at the final trials.”

As one of those players, Rogic remained in London to play for the academy during 2011 and had hoped to extend his stay in Europe.

“I’ve got the aim of staying over there [UK] and playing professional football after these 12 months,” he said at the time.

There was a trial at Reading, who did offer the midfielder professional terms, and interest from a number of Premier League clubs but Rogic was not awarded a work permit and his dream was stopped dead in its tracks before he was even out of his teens.

Luckily, the midfielder was welcomed back home with open arms. He signed a contract with Central Coast Mariners for the second half of the A-League season and impressed, making his Australia debut just 10 months after his first A-League appearance.

Before long he was turning heads again and Celtic saw off competition for his signature after a successful trial in January 2013.

Still only 25, Rogic has made 35 appearances for his country, won the A-League twice and has recently been crowned champion of the Scottish Premier League for the third season in a row.

Bigger things may yet beckon but the midfielder is by far the greatest success story to come out of Nike’s experiment to find talented young players who may come from hard-to-scout corners of the world, or simply slipped through the nets of big-time academies.

“I wanted to win The Chance because I’ve wanted to be a professional footballer all my life,” Rogic explained a few years ago.

“The Nike Academy met all my expectations.

“At The Chance I learned that I’m mentally stronger than I thought.”