Alou Kuol loves a laugh.
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He laughs often, laughs loud; and laughs long.
Best of all, though; he loves being the one who laughs last — that’s really in Kuol’s decibel range.
On a quiet night, you can almost hear him laughing at A-League Men clubs Melbourne Victory and Western United — and that’s one hell of a loud laugh as Kuol now thrives in the German city of Stuttgart.
The Shepparton 20-year-old is being paid $250,000 in his first season of a five-year contract to play Division One football in the Bundesliga, one of Europe’s leading leagues.
Barely two years ago Kuol was a semi-pro with the Goulburn Valley Suns; working as many hours as he could get at The Deck in Shepparton to put food on his own plate.
And despite a swashbuckling 22-goal season in Suns orange, which had A-League talent scouts scrambling through their notes for more on the South Sudanese born striker, it was as though he had hit a glass ceiling.
Because while his breakout year got him a trial at Victory; he was rejected as “too raw”.
So he fronted at Western United where he got the same run-around — before being run out the door.
That was until Central Coast Mariners manager Alen Stajcic saw something in the talented forward and took him on as a super sub.
Playing in 26 games — 19 coming off the bench — he racked up seven goals.
At one point he was leading the scoring for the league, not just the Mariners, so it came as no surprise his manager, John Grimaud, immediately started casting his rising star around the big leagues.
And a Bundesliga club went for him — hook, line and sinker.
But it was not a dream come true for the former refugee because, he admitted, his dreams had never taken him that high.
“Did I think I’d be going to Stuttgart? Not in 100 years,” Kuol said.
“Two years ago I was playing National Premier League, this year I was in the A-League and now, next year, to be potentially playing in the Bundesliga? Not a chance.
“I thought to myself, ‘this is crazy, I have to move over there and transfer what I’ve done with the Mariners to Germany’.
“And that means starting again, working hard, and winning them over; so hopefully one day I can debut in the Bundesliga.”
Which finally gets us to all that laughing.
A year after being dismissed out of hand by Western United, Kuol and his Mariners welcomed them to Central Coast Stadium for a night where retribution was to echo thick in the air.
He started the game on the bench; and stayed there until Stajcic saw the moment and subbed him on.
The two goals he headed home; as the clock wound down, helped his team win the game and remain his “favourite moment as a professional”.
“That sort of outcome just doesn’t come around regularly,” Kuol said.
“In fact; hardly ever to be honest.
“I couldn’t believe it — it felt like something out of a dream. Playing in front of thousands of fans in a stadium and scoring two goals, it didn’t feel real at all.”
Although now in Germany and learning how things are done in the big leagues, Kuol said being away from family and friends had been tough enough when he was just up the road on the Central Coast.
However, he said he had goals he wanted to achieve beyond the ones he was scoring on the pitch; and knew that meant making sacrifices — and being on the other side of the world was just one of them.
Although the “other side” is where Kuol started life, born in Khartoum in 2001, his family fled to Egypt when he was two and 18 months later got the green light to head for Australia.
After two years there the family relocated to Shepparton — about as far from their war-ravaged region the family could get.
But Kuol, who moved to Germany in early July, knows whatever changes through which his life has already gone have only been a preparation — the real changes started the minute he signed the contract.
“Being away from my family only motivates me more, so I can help them in the future,” Kuol said.
Part of that motivation is about maturing in a hurry.
He once was sidelined by the Goulburn Valley Suns for skipping training to hit the night scene of Melbourne instead.
In his new life, that simply does not fly.
“Adjusting to life as a professional means I have to take everything more seriously,” he said.
“My diet, my exercise, my training and my mental awareness on and off the pitch — being better behaved off the pitch especially.
“I’ve developed physically, mentally — I’ve also seen myself mature; but I’m probably not quite there yet.”
The leap from Australia, a nation just finding its feet in the football world, to a country where it borders on religion, has not been lost on the young striker.
When the big move began to materialise, the cogs were already whirring inside Kuol’s head and he has already had days where he wakes up and has to shake his head to remind himself he really is a Stuttgart player.
Astronomic, unprecedented and downright unheard of are all acceptable superlatives to describe Kuol’s rise from semi-pro roughie to upperclassman of a European football aristocracy.
The beautiful game has totally transformed the Shepparton sensation’s life, but the fame that comes with admission to the game’s elite level is yet to wrap its (at times) insidious tendrils around him.
When you see Kuol, let alone meet him, you can’t miss the swagger. But once you start talking to him his complete and genuine absence of vanity can be unexpectedly disarming.
Because behind it all is a humble kid, a Shepparton kid, who cannot help but pull a mock grimace when recounting his latest visit home.
“It felt like I never left,” he said.
“My room’s still the same, the house is still noisy, waking up to kids banging on the walls, being hit, balls getting kicked around, everything man. It’s ridiculous.”
His six siblings provide the aforementioned mayhem and, as ridiculous as it may be, that was the environment which initially cultivated his success — because in a crowd like that you needed something to stand out.
And in Kuol’s case, that would be charisma.
During his GV Suns tenure, his charm on and off the field had the stands at McEwen Reserve spellbound.
At Central Coast Mariners he made light work of captivating the significantly larger audience and also wrapped him in the attention he was so destined to command.
Already there were hordes of German fans on Twitter salivating at the refugee turned Aussie wunderkind’s arrival.
He’s 20, he hasn’t kicked a ball in front of a packed Stuttgart stadium but he’s already on the radar of its fans.
Whether he would be able to pack up his goal-scoring ability and carry it to Germany was on the lips of every Australian football fans lips upon his departure.
He has since put that question to bed.
The vivacious striker scored seven goals in 12 games for his new faction’s under-21 outfit, and now he can be found training with the big boys — which means kicking a ball in front of a packed Stuttgart stadium seems to be just around the corner for Kuol.
No question, Kuol is a maker of fanfare and a breath of fresh air in the silver-spoon fed modern football industry.
With that spotlight pointed right at him, he has not hesitated to step up to the microphone: “My advice to others? I’d tell them to never give up”.
“If someone doesn’t like you coaching-wise, keep believing in yourself and your own ability.
“Work hard and chip away, because hell, that’s what I did man.”