Brisbane teen Dylan Mobbs kicks off football career with Italian club Venezia FC

Almost a year to the day, Mobbs is back in Australia and has progressed in ways he never could’ve imagined.

Now, he’s more determined than ever to get back to Europe and continue pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming a professional footballer.

Raised in Brisbane and the first in his family to play football, Mobbs is a self-made star.

He began kicking around a soccer ball at the age of five and his passion for playing only grew as he did.

The talented striker spent his formative years at Eastern Suburbs FC, before joining NPL club Brisbane City in 2018.

He was spotted by Venezia coaches during a series of training sessions last year, through a partnership between Brisbane City and the Italian club.

Mobbs was offered a two-week trial, and just a couple of weeks later, he was on a plane to Italy.

The young talent impressed during his trial, and subsequently signed with the Under-17s side at the Serie B outfit for the 2019/20 season.

After earning his debut against Serie A academy heavyweights Inter Milan, Mobbs went on to play the academies of prominent sides such as Juventus, Atalanta and AC Milan.

Mobbs admits going from playing in Brisbane to Venice, in a country that lives and breathes football, came with its fair share of culture shock.

“I had no idea how serious it was,” he says.

“In Australia, there are only a handful of professional teams; in Italy, having all of these professional clubs around and playing an amazing squad every week was massive.

“I thought I’d be fine – that I’d just go down to the local club two or three times a week and play a game on the weekend and that was all it would be.

“I didn’t realise all the extra work that you have to put in outside of the team and training that really pushes you the extra mile.

“We’d have everything planned out for us, like the timing of meals before a game and what we ate, which was something I’d never experienced.

“Training was also more intense because all the players are fighting each other for a place in the starting 11 each week, hoping to impress and set themselves apart from the rest of the squad so that they’d be the ones getting called up into the youth sides and getting pro contracts.”

Most people would struggle living in a foreign country halfway around the world with a substantial language barrier, let alone doing it at just 16 years old.

Mobbs says he initially battled with being so far away from his family and friends in Brisbane.

“The first week away was one of the hardest weeks I’ve ever experienced in my life,” he says.

“I didn’t realise how difficult it would be.

“But I’d said to my dad that no matter what happened, I just had to stick it out.”

As the tenacious teen developed friendships with his teammates and became more familiar with the Italian language, his life abroad got easier.

“A lot of the boys really welcomed me and made me feel at home; they were a really good bunch of people,” he says.

“At the start there weren’t that many guys who spoke English well – maybe two or three.

“When I moved into the club accommodation, there were people from different countries and English was the common language, so that helped a lot.

“I did an Italian course outside of school and I also did Italian lessons during school.

“Once the lessons started, that was when it began to flow easier for me.”

Dylan Mobbs in a game against AC Milan. (Photo: Paolo Benvenuto Photography)

Living, playing and going to school in Venice, Mobbs was fully immersed in the Italian culture and way of life, and it opened his eyes to a world far from the one he grew up in.

“It was completely different from anything that I’d experienced in Australia,” he says.

“One thing I noticed was the intensity of the relationship between families – everyone seems really close.”

That said, it’s clear while speaking with Mobbs that he shares a special bond with his own parents, who are behind him every step of the way.

“They’re so proud of me for everything that I’ve achieved and they’re always my biggest supporters in whatever I do,” he says.

Mobbs’ experience in Italy was life-changing and allowed him to develop significantly on both a personal and professional level.

He says that, not only has he become more independent, but he’s also seen notable improvements in his game since training and playing with Venezia.

Unfortunately, his experience was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed almost 35,000 people in Italy since it recorded its first local cases in late February.

The football season was shut down in March and players living in club accommodation were forced to leave due to lockdown restrictions.

An Italian teammate’s family welcomed Mobbs into their home for a couple of weeks, but the gravity of the situation soon became clear and the young Australian decided to come home before the borders closed.

Now back with his family, Mobbs has returned to school for the foreseeable future and is training with Brisbane Roar as Australian sports slowly start to resume.

Since his return to Brisbane, Mobbs has fully understood the magnitude of the opportunity he was given and is more driven than ever to make it as a professional footballer.

“I want to get back to Europe as soon as I can to continue playing football,” he says.

“I don’t want to lose the opportunity to play because it’s been such a great experience and I’ve learnt so much from it.”

But with Italy still struggling to recover from the pandemic, Mobbs’ future with Venezia remains uncertain.

 “At the moment it depends on the directions given by the Italian Football Federation,” he says.

“It’s all up in the air... we’ll see when everything starts back up.”

On the cusp of turning 17, Mobbs is well aware of what it takes to reach his goal of turning pro, and it seems that nothing – not even a global pandemic – is going to get in his way.