Mitch Austin has played professional football in England and Australia, but his career has been curtailed by injury – now he’s living out his dream on FIFA (EA Sports FC) instead as a content creator
Mitch Austin harbours regrets about his football career.
The left winger kicked off his professional playing days at Cambridge United in League Two before heading back to his rugby legend dad Greg's native Australia for successful stints in the A-League, turning out against Juventus and Atletico Madrid in pre-season friendlies.
Now 33, he's been out of action for four years due to a series of injuries. However, unlike most players, he's got another chance to rectify past mistakes – albeit in a different way. Austin has become an online content creator, producing TikTok and YouTube videos based on his career.
He's now replaying it through the FIFA video game series (now rebranded to EA Sports FC). Interestingly, it was his former club Melbourne Victory that pushed him towards it upon the launch of the country's Esports league.
"It was the first season for that and the club obviously knew I was into FIFA," Austin shared with Daily Star Sport. "I'd done my ACL and the club basically said to me, 'oh, because you're injured, do you want to play in the E-League?' Because they didn't know anything about it."
Austin said he felt more pressure playing in the weekly tournament, which racked up thousands of viewers on streaming service Twitch – and was also broadcast on Fox Sports – than he did playing in the Australian top tier.
In the six years since, he's since focused on growing his own channels, amassing 80k YouTube subscribers and approximately five million likes on TikTok. One of his series involves playing as himself on FIFA 17. "I try to give myself a better career than what I had," he explained. "I'm on 50 grand in the Bundesliga so it's going well."
He's also managed to notch up his first cap for Australia in the virtual world, even playing at the 2018 World Cup – an achievement that eluded him in real life, despite being on Ange Postecoglou's radar during his time in charge of the national team.
Austin has fond memories of his time with Central Coast Mariners and Melbourne Victory. He starred in victories over Juve and Atletico, even scooping the man of the match award against the former.
Reflecting on those highlights, Austin admits there's a bittersweet mix of pride and what-ifs. He remarked: "Playing in those games and obviously playing well kind of just made me realise I could have definitely played at a lot higher level, if I'd maybe kind of gone about things a bit differently.
"I think I just never believed in myself enough when I was younger, when I needed to. If I had the mentality I had now back, when I was sort of 18 and it properly counted, I definitely think I'd have got to a decent level.
"Not saying I didn't get to a decent level, I think that the dream at one point was just to play a professional game. Just playing a game in League Two was the dream at the start."
Austin now tries to help the younger generation during his streams, emphasising self-belief as key. "I tell a lot of the young guys on the streams that's the main thing – just believing in yourself, which I think is difficult, especially for the younger guys when you're trying to break into first teams, it's very intimidating," he said.
Austin hasn't ruled out a return to football, despite his last appearance being for Partick Thistle in Scotland before the pandemic forced him back to Australia. He underwent a double cartilage transplant on his knee, shelling out AUS$100,000 (£52k) of his own cash in a desperate bid to recover.
A car accident further delayed his progress, and only recently has he been able to get back on the pitch with a ball at his feet. "I'm never going to rule anything out," he declared. "I know I'm obviously a lot older now. I had to get a donor transplant from a deceased person, so I had to wait for someone my age to pass away who was on the donor list.
"The good thing is with the surgeon, he's never told me that '100% you can't go back and play on it'. I'm sort of rehabbing it to come back and play and if it happens, it happens. But I'm not going to be fully be like, 'yeah, I'm 110%' because I just don't fully know. I'm kind of rehabilitating it to come back and play and then we'll see how we go from there."
For now, Austin is concentrating on growing his online presence, collaborating with big brands like Puma and major clubs such as Borussia Dortmund. He's also relocating back to England to be with his girlfriend and focus on his live streams, becoming one of the first pro footballers to take this route.
"I'm sort of in a lucky position," he concluded. "I can kind of just kind of move and give it a shot. I'm excited to see how it all goes."
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