The Bayern Munich-bound Nestory Irankunda has the Australian footballing world at his feet. Yet his early career has been categorised as much by great goals as tall poppy syndrome sufferers trying to tear him down.
A cultural phenomenon isolated to Australia and New Zealand, tall poppy syndrome is defined as a “perceived tendency to discredit or disparage those who have achieved notable wealth or prominence in public life.”
Dr Rumeet Billan, author of a 2018 study titled ‘The Tallest Poppy’, explained the syndrome is directly tied to the values of egalitarianism and humbleness that are distinctly prominent in Australian society.
In Billan’s estimation, there is an “expectation people should not be boastful of act in ways that are perceived as flagrant.” Essentially, tall poppy syndrome dictates those achieving far greater feats than the common person must do so silently, without celebrating their efforts, no matter how amazing they may be.
There are perhaps no greater victims of tall poppy syndrome than Australian athletes, especially those overachieving while in their youth. A sporting society, one which fervently follows clubs and national teams through thick and thin, Australian athletes are deified almost as soon as they rocket onto the sporting scene.
Off the back of this, tall poppy syndrome is larger and more visceral within the Australian sporting cauldron than any other social subsection.
Nestory Irankunda, the mercurial teenage winger signed from Adelaide United by German footballing giants Bayern Munich for an Australian record fee before legally able to drink alcohol, is Australian football’s next great hope.
Just 59 games into his senior career, Irankunda’s talent has been keenly observed in Bavaria and Australia. In the eyes of many, he can become the greatest Socceroos of all time, but only if the Australian sporting public shed their tall poppy syndrome propensity and let him fulfil his potential.
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Only tall poppy syndrome can stop Nestory Irankunda
It’s all there. Everything you need in a modern winger is contained within Nestory Irankunda. It’s raw, but it’s there; the rapid speed, the power striking, the two-footedness, the deceptive dribbling, the sharp turn of pace and an ever-improving ability to pick the right ball.
After 59 games and 2,300 minutes of professional football, Irankunda’s stats read: 16 goals, eight assists, 14 yellow cards, one red, 23 reds, a thousand boos incurred and a thousand visceral tweets inspired. That’s 95 minutes per goal involvement and 153 minutes for every booking.
As far as wingers go, he’s less in the mould of Crystal Palace’s Michael Olise or Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho, silky dribbles with sublime creative instinct, and more likely to emulate his future teammate Leroy Sane, rapidly quick with a natural goalscoring ability regardless of distance or angle.
If all goes to plan, he is destined for the top of club football. At international level, no Australian footballer has been as talented as Irankunda at his age this century. Harry Kewell was a teenage sensation at Leeds United in the 1990s while Tim Cahill’s breakout at Millwall occurred in his early 20s.
Only Mark Viduka, the National Soccer League Player of the Year while still a teenager, has an early career that mirrors Irankunda. But Viduka’s rise was two decades ago, Irankunda’s is now.
Since bursting onto the scene a few years ago, the young Adelaide United winger has been at the forefront of Australian footballing minds. Since Kewell’s peak in the mid-2000s, Australia has cried out for a winger like Irankunda. Naturally, his talent and the lack of players cut like him, has attracted admiration amongst Australian football fans hoping he can be the talisman for a prosperous future for the Socceroos.
Can you blame them? He’s scoring goals. Not just any goals; incredible goals, rifled in from unbelievable distances and inconceivable angles. And when he scores them, he cartwheels and backflips like a child in a playground, his joy erupting with the stadium around him. Even those conceding his strikes can hardly believe it when they ripple the back of the net.
For these reasons, because he’s exceptional and joyous, he attracts the ire of the Australian public’s deep-rooted tall poppy syndrome tendencies, a majority of whom dream their professional trajectory, and personal joy, was as sky high as Irankunda’s.
Immense talent brings with it immense expectations that have the potential to grow unbearable and unmanageable if allowed to fester unchecked. In Australia, immense talent is met with societal vilification for daring to dream of being a tall poppy in an expansive field of weeds and grass.
Over the 2023-24 A-League Mens season, this hostility towards Irankunda has been glaring, notably against Melbourne Victory early in the season. On that occasion, the weight of the world around him grew too much and he lashed out, receiving the first red card of his career. Constant provocation, from physical defenders and hostile crowds, culminated in a frustrated explosion and an early shower.
Conor Chapman, the personification of tall poppy syndrome, flared the situation. Chapman, ten years Irankunda’s senior and more than half the player he is, charged from the other side of AAMI Park to remind the young winger where the tunnel is.
Boos are a natural, if unpretty, aspect of sport. As is overt physicality towards star players. Both are sly ways of gaining even minute competitive advantages. Elite athletes the world over learn to live with them. Irankunda must be no different if he is to succeed. Yet in Australian society hell-bent on tearing down its tallest sporting poppies, these ringing boos have added meaning.
In a similar vein, the societal vilification of Nestory Irankunda once again bubbled to the top of the Australian footballing world when, after initially not receiving a call-up to the Australian side for the U-23 Asian Cup because coach Tony Vidmar and Australia wanted to focus on the player’s ‘bigger picture’, Irankunda rejected the chance to represent his nation at the tournament following an injury to Marco Tilio.
Irankunda’s rejection was instantly met by outcry and friction the young winger must grow accustomed to in order to thrive in the Australian sporting ecosystem. A-League clubs, some of whom use Irankunda to promote matches against Adelaide, privately lobbied for the league to stand Irankunda down for the duration of the Olyroos Asian Cup campaign.
Disguised as a matter of sporting integrity, a simple whiff of the matter would prick one’s nasal passages to the distinct scent of tall poppy syndrome. Had it been any other young footballer in Irankunda’s shoes – initially not selected before expressing unavailability when needed to focus on development at club level – would the clubs have kicked up as much of a fuss? Highly doubtful.
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Yet, because Irankunda is at once the competition’s brightest young prospect and best player, its face and saviour as well as its enemy, his treatment is different to normal. Let me reword that; because Irankunda is Australian football’s tallest poppy, he must be prepared for wrongful pruning.
Over the coming years, Irankunda’s growth and progression through the Australian national team ranks must be carefully watched and monitored. The overwhelming consensus is that the Adelaide United winger is good enough for the Socceroos right now, if not to start, at least to appear from the bench.
Yet, the consensus amongst coaching staff across multiple Socceroos age groups, including the senior squad, is that Irankunda’s progression should not be rushed, his bigger picture respected and adhered to to avoid burnout in later years.
“We want Nestor to be a 10-year plus Socceroo, year in and year out. He’s going to be the future of the national team. And we just have to be mindful of what we do with him in the national team space and at the moment and we don’t want to damage him,” Tony Vidmar explained.
More than just a test of coaching patience, Irankunda’s imminent Socceroos rise will be a litmus test for the Australian sporting public; can we drop our tall poppy syndrome inclinations to uplift and elevate one of the finest talents we’ve produced in a generation? Or will we remain concretely set in our ways, insistent on tearing down someone achieving more than the masses dare dream of?
With any luck, Irankunda’s move to Bavaria will shield him from tall poppy syndrome. Perhaps it is purely a phenomenon isolated to our pocket of the world that evaporates once multiple time zones are crossed and European air is tasted.
That’s certainly been the case for Ange Postecoglou, whose time at Tottenham Hotspur has received overwhelming praise and jubilation from the Australian sporting public, even those supporting any of Spurs’s many Premier League rivals.
This isn’t to suggest an overwhelming majority of Australian football fans direct negativity Irankunda’s way. Scenes following Adelaide’s 3-3 draw with Western United in mid-April, where waves of fans waited well beyond full-time for a photo and signature of the face of the A-League and Australian football’s next great hope. But as is the case in the social media age, even the most marginal voices can shout the loudest.
Irankunda arrives at a Bayern Munich side reeling from losing out on the Bundesliga title for the first time since 2011-12. With head coach Thomas Tuchel departing at the end of the 2023-24 campaign and number one managerial target Xabi Alonso remaining at champions Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern’s future remains up in the air.
Whether there is a mass exodus of stars this off-season, and a squad refresh, the club have shown in recent years a commitment to youth development. Alphonso Davies and Mathys Tel, who arrived as unknown hot prospects, are now established first-team regulars, as did Kingsley Coman and Jamal Musiala.
Avenues to the Bayern first team exist. If the club feel Irankunda is ready for the bright lights of European football, there is no good reason the winger shouldn’t be in the senior Socceroos set-up sooner rather than later. That brings with it expectation, which Vidmar admitted the young winger was struggling with.
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Irankunda’s increased Socceroos involvement will also bring the first test of whether the Australian footballing community can collectively lay aside any tall poppy syndrome inclinations and focus not on his flaws, of which there will be many at his age, and what he doesn’t do, to celebrate his many exceptional qualities.
Because, unlike Icarus, whose wings singed when he flew too close to the sun, the only thing stopping Irankunda from soaring to heights no Australian footballer has dared to go is the societal anchor dragging him back down to Earth in the name of humility and egalitarianism.
