It's hard not to hop on the Nestory Irankunda hype train

When Nestory Irankunda first made the leap from Adelaide United to Bayern Munich, it was easy to wonder what came next. Such was the excitement surrounding his teenage breakout with the Reds, he'd moved directly from the A-League Men to one of the biggest clubs in the world, bypassing several rungs on the ladder. And when he spent his first year in Europe playing for Bayern's reserves, while also dropping out of several Socceroos squads, it was easy to see how such a huge jump had perhaps left Irankunda at a crossroads.

This was the point wherein so many talented teens, Australian or otherwise, have stumbled. They are the prodigious young talent that bursts onto the scene and captures imaginations, only to be claimed by the meat grinder that is elite European football and discarded, if not outright turned upon, by the hype machine that surrounded them.

At best, it's unfeeling. At worst, it's cruel. But it's the reality of modern football.

Yet a couple of years on from that make-or-break juncture, we're still talking about Irankunda. And we're not doing it as a cautionary tale, either, but as he continues to take strides towards realising his immense potential. There's still plenty of work to do, of course, with challenges still to be overcome and the good timing and fortune that accompanies any kind of rise still necessary. But it's been a big few months.

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Last week, the now-20-year-old officially made the move from Watford to Portuguese giants Sporting CP, coming off the back of a FIFA World Cup in which he became the youngest Australian man to score on football's biggest stage.

After struggling in Tony Popovic's first game in charge of the Socceroos and subsequently being left out of remaining qualifiers, Irankunda has now become a fixture in national team squads and looms as one of the team's most important players for January's AFC Asian Cup. Two years on from playing in the UEFA Youth League, he'll instead be playing in the UEFA Champions League in 2026-27, with a Sporting side that reached the quarterfinals of last season's tournament before being eliminated by eventual finalists Arsenal. He'll be joining a club that has earned a reputation as one of the best developers of talent in all of football, but also one that saw its two-year hold of the Primeira Liga broken by FC Porto last season. This year, the expectation amongst Leões fans will be to return to the summit.

The deal to take Irankunda to Lisbon was reportedly worth up to £17 million if all escalators are met. It doesn't sit at the highest tier of purchases that Portuguese giants have made in recent years, and comes in below the €20 million Portuguese rivals Benfica are reportedly set to invest in Irankunda's Socceroos teammate Alessandro Circati -- but it's a significant fee all the same. It's one that both shows the belief the club has in Irankunda's potential and, callously objectifying as it sounds (and is), provides a significant incentive to develop him and ensure a return on investment. One only needs to look at the deals that Sporting have done in recent years -- such as Ousmane Diomande to Nottingham Forest, Viktor Gyökeres to Arsenal, or Manuel Ugarte to Paris Saint-Germain -- to recognise that Irankunda has been brought in with one eye on flipping him for a significant profit in the future.

Surrounded by incredibly talented teammates, this means the one-time Adelaide Croatia junior will be afforded the opportunity to earn opportunities against some of the best players in the world in European play, with Sporting to be placed in Pot 2 of the Champions League draw to take place later this month.

Further, on a domestic level, seasons without silverware -- as was the case in 2025-26 -- are supposed to be the aberration at the club. The Portuguese top-flight is the eighth-strongest league in the world, per the Opta rankings, slotted just a shade higher than the Championship that Irankunda has left and while this has plenty to do with its top-heavy nature -- Boavista's title win in 2001 was the only time since 1946 that a club outside of Porto, Sporting, or Benfica won a Portuguese title -- the demand to challenge for top spot will present a different kind of pressure and scrutiny.

An adjustment period will be inevitable, and minutes will need to be earned (a task that would be made simpler if Geny Catamo completes his mooted move to Sunderland), but that goes for every youngster on the rise. Yet it's the combination of a new, elite environment, strong developmental focus and associated demands that should provide a setting to enable Irankunda to take the next step in his game -- at least, that will be the hope for both supporters of the Leões and Australian football.

"You're playing a game every three days; that's the first challenge," fellow Socceroo and mentor Awer Mabil, who played at Paços de Ferreira while they were in the Portuguese top-flight, said. "You have to manage your body very well; focus on eating right, preparing right. That's very, very important.

"Secondly, also is to block out [noise], because during the year or during the season. You might have one or two bad games; that doesn't mean you know you should change who you are. You should just keep working hard.

"Those are the things that he's going to learn. The Championship was great for him because they were playing a lot of games anyway. So now he's going to be doing it also at a European level, in the Champions League.

"There's much more attention now, but my advice would be not to change based on that attention, but just to continue to be himself because that's what got him there."

And perhaps that's why Estádio José Alvalade feels like a good next step for Irankunda.

In the January transfer window of 2025, the attacker moved from Bayern Munich to Grasshoppers on loan, playing 21 games and getting a proper taste of first-team football on the continent. Irankunda then moved to Watford on a permanent deal, experiencing a new level of expectations and demands in arguably the most physically challenging league in Europe, logging the most minutes he had in a single season across his career.

Now he's gone to Sporting, where the challenge of Champions League football and chasing domestic titles and cups amid heightened expectations awaits. Step-by-step, after taking some time to adjust to life in Europe (remember, he first went over as an 18-year-old, living out of home for the first time with the weight of Australian expectations on his shoulders), Irankunda has made rapid, but manageable, leaps in level and standards, where he's had the chance to adjust, learn, shed some bad habits, and show enough to move on.

Indeed, Irankunda's not the finished article, by any stretch; Popovic and new club boss Rui Borges would tell you that. And while there is plenty of enthusiasm surrounding his potential, there's still much to be done before he's reaching the levels of international recognition that the likes of Harry Kewell or Mark Viduka did once upon a time. It's such a difficult juggling act for observers: a desire to balance the excitement around a young talent and their accomplishments without crossing the line into hyperbole that does little to help anyone in the long run.

But this move to Sporting -- and the belief that the Portuguese giants obviously have in him -- is another signal that those outside of the Australian bubble see Irankunda as having something special about him. So, with a level of anticipation, those Down Under await the next step in the rise of one of its best talents.