Socceroos star Martin Boyle has only ever been to Australia once - but you can't doubt his commitment to the green and gold's campaign to qualify for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
The Scottish-born attacker played an important part in the Socceroos recent matches in Kuwait, with Graham Arnold's team winning all four games to qualify for the third round of AFC's World Cup qualifying.
Australia got victories against Kuwait, Nepal, Chinese Taipei and Jordan in their Kuwaiti hub to reach the next stage of qualifying without much difficulty.
However, Boyle revealed the sacrifices he and his family had to make for Australia's Qatar 2022 journey, with COVID-19 restrictions denying him time with his loved ones in the domestic football off-season.
"We (Australia) did well over the summer beating the four teams that we did to get to the next stage of qualification for the World Cup, which is great," Boyle said in a press conference for his Scottish club Hibernian.
"It meant I only got around a week to 10 days off, which wasn’t ideal as I had to quarantine on the way back. There wasn’t a lot of family time but, at the end of the day, your reward might be qualifying for the World Cup.
"So you’ve got to put that in. My family all know exactly what they’ve bought into, really. It is what it is. We’ve got massive games coming up."
Boyle is eligible to play for Australia through his Sydney-born father and set foot Down Under for the one-and-only time so far in September 2018 for his Socceroos debut in friendlies against South Korea and Lebanon.
Since his first green and gold match, the 28-year-old has become an indispensable part of the team, scoring three goals and getting two assists in only six Australian games.
Boyle is undoubtedly a star of Scotland's Premier League, securing a place in last season's team of the year after his efforts for Hibs, scoring 15 times and laying on 12 assists in all competitions.
He has also started the current campaign in top form, scoring against Premier League side Arsenal in a recent friendly.
The winger is preparing the first leg of Hibs' UEFA Conference League qualifier against Andorran side Santa Coloma - in a new European competition starting for the first team this season that is beneath the Champions League and Europa League.
"We are not here to hang around," Boyle said. "We are trying to qualify for the group stage of European football. We put in all the hard work last season and we need to continue that.
"That is the main goal at the end of the day. We will take it game by game and take it as seriously as we can. We are not here for a jolly up and we know the rewards at the end of the day, and that’s qualifying for the group stages.
"We’ve got a great belief in this squad. Since the manager’s come in, he’s put a plan in place for what we want to achieve and we’re all working towards the same goal. We’ve heavily bought into that.
"We had a successful-ish season last year – minus a few cup games. But finishing third in the league was great for us. Hopefully we can go one step further this year and add European football to the equation."
