Ariath Piol has made headlines this season amid his emergence on the Isuzu UTE A-League stage. The Macarthur Bulls forward speaks to aleagues.com.au about his journey and what has fuelled him up until this point.
Parents can impact their children in a variety of ways. For Ariath Piol, his mum and dad continue to be the source of motivation in a fledging career that is gaining momentum.
Piol was born and raised in Adelaide but his parents fled Sudan as kids amid the African nation’s civil war in the 1980s.
It has shaped the 20-year-old Macarthur Bulls forward.
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“What they went through to get to where I am today,” Piol told aleagues.com.au ahead of Monday night’s showdown against two-time reigning champions Central Coast Mariners.
“And all the struggles and trauma. The sacrifices they had to make when they were young, when they were younger than what I am now.
“Just for me to be here in a good country, doing what I love is where the story lies.
“That’s my why almost. Just knowing their story and what they had to go through gives me that motivation whenever things are going wrong for me, I just know that I have to put my head down and keep working because there’s worse things going on in the world than than a bad game or a bad couple of weeks or not scoring a goal.”
The Second Sudanese Civil War broke out in 1983 and lasted up until 2005, with the war resulting in the independence of South Sudan six years after the war ended.
It puts everything into perspective for Piol, who is enjoying a breakout season with the Bulls in 2024-25.
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Piol continued: “My mum and dad didn’t know each other, they just had the same like path.
“I know both of them split up from their family, and they probably would have only been 10-11 or 12, and they split up from their their mum, their dad, their siblings. They just ran. I know my mum was going with my uncle, and they were just running on the road, on the path, through the bushes.
“They could only travel at night as well, because you go through the day you get seen, you might get shot or whatever. They were just traveling at night. They were saying there’s animals. They didn’t have torches or nothing back then, either. Just basically hoping to get to the other side of it.
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“Then Khartoum, because it’s the Arab side, and they’re from the south side. They were already being mistreated, but the church kind of brought them in. Then because of their mistreatment, they ended up being able to go to Egypt.
“So then the Catholic church took care of my mum in Egypt, and I think my dad just fled to Egypt as well, just walking long distances, and then they catch a train, and then they’re on a bus and a truck, different forms of transport.
“They got to Egypt, and then that’s where they met and had my older sister, who’s only two years older than me, and then they did all the the paperwork to come to Australia. I remember she told me that they asked her ‘where do you want to go to?’. They said that there’s Australia, Canada, United States, they told them all these different countries.
“She just said, just get me somewhere where it’s safe and I can start a life, a better life for my children. So I could be in the MLS, or I could be in Canada. I could be anywhere right now.”
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Piol has been able to lean on his parents’ struggles to help him get through some difficult moments in his blossoming career.
Like, when he was twice cut by Football Federation of South Australia’s National Training Centre (NTC) programs in his teens.
There were times where he doubted his future in football, but the story of his parents ensured he stayed on his path as a footballer.
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“I’m not going to lie and say I never gave up. Like there were days or nights where I was thinking like, ‘Am I actually going to make it? Like, maybe I’m not good enough’,” Piol reflected.
“But I think it goes back to my family struggle and everything that they had to sacrifice and do for me to be here. When I remember that, I remember what my mum and dad went through.
“That’s what kind of makes me say, ‘Okay, well, I shouldn’t give up, because they’ve done what they can. They’ve done everything they can for me to be in this position. So what’s the point of me giving up?’ So I said I may as well go try, if I make it, then I make it if I don’t, then at least I tried, and it just wasn’t meant to be at the end of the day.”
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Piol has only played seven A-Leagues matches in his career, totalling 248 minutes of action. In that time, he has scored two goals, including a stunning bicycle kick earlier this season. He is also a 2024 Australia Cup winner.
But for this talented Australian, it has been quite the journey to get where he is with the Bulls.
Piol actually started out playing AFL as a five-year-old.
“The way I was playing AFL… there was a rule at that age, you can’t soccer it,” he recalled.
“You can’t kick it off the ground but I was doing that. So then I guess my parents kind of saw that, and they’re like, oh, let’s just put him in soccer.”
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That is when football took over and he started playing from Under-6s.
He called Campbelltown home from U7s to U12s and then went through Football SA’s development state group alongside the likes of current Macarthur teammate Bernardo Oliveira.
In between playing for MetroStars in his teens, Piol was twice released by the NTC, where he met close friends like former Adelaide United young gun and Socceroo Mohamed Toure, who is now playing for Randers in Denmark.
Eventually, Piol – who grew up watching Cristiano Ronaldo videos on YouTube while re-watching cassettes of the 2006 FIFA World Cup – stepped out of his comfort zone in Adelaide, but it wasn’t straight forward.
Before joining Western Sydney Wanderers’ academy, he trialled at Central Coast Mariners.
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“In the first session, we did an internal game and I got slide tackled. I ended up doing something to my ACL,” Piol said. “I can’t remember exactly what the term was, but so after the first session, I couldn’t trial anymore.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen, but they were kind of pleased with what they saw in that 20-30 minutes that I was training for, that they did offer me a spot at the club, but then I ended up going to the Western Sydney Wanderers Academy. Just for family.”
Piol had to leave home in Adelaide to crack an A-Leagues academy via the Wanderers. There is no disappointment from his side that he didn’t get a chance with the Reds.
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As he says, “everything happens for a reason”.
“I think me moving away from home, I think I was 17 when I left Adelaide, so me moving away from home really matured me as a person,” Piol insisted. “As you’d imagine, moving to a big city like Sydney, you have to mature yourself or otherwise it’s going to be difficult.
“That helped me in different areas of my life, and then it played a part in my football being in Sydney. So I don’t necessarily see me not playing for Adelaide as a bad thing. I just see it as everything happens for a reason. Football took me where it took me.”
His Christian faith played a “big part” in getting him through the big move away from home. It still does.
“It’s kind of always been in my life, whether I’ve liked it or not since I was young,” Piol said. “We used to go to church every Sunday. I remember when I was young because I didn’t know much about it, I used to just not like going.
“But things changed for me when I moved to Sydney. I was living on my own and it’s like a lot of spare time. I just thought this can’t be life. Life can’t just be you just live like, there’s gotta be a greater cause, a greater person, a greater creator.
“Then that’s what I started to get deeper into the faith and reading the Bible a bit more and speak to people. That’s where my faith sort of started to become strong. Now I use it as when things are going well and when things are going bad, I know that I have someone or somewhere to fall to and read scriptures or pray and just get ease of mind.
“Faith plays a big part for me.”
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That maturity is showing on the field with Mile Sterjovski’s Macarthur.
Piol only joined the Bulls on a scholarship contract in February 2024, having impressed in the club’s academy side at NPLM NSW level in 2023, before re-committing for a further two seasons in May.
Sterjovski has relied more on Piol this season, starting him in two of his five Isuzu UTE A-League appearances in 2024-25.
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“I don’t know if it’s necessarily extra belief because I’ve always kind of had that belief in myself, but it’s probably more so just like I’ve improved a lot on myself,” said Piol, who has been benefiting from the presence of star teammate Valere Germain.
“I’ve worked on the things I need to work on in the off-season. I’m just trying to work every day.
“Just the little things that are now starting to click in the games. Obviously it does help when you’re playing more minutes, you have more time to showcase what you can do. I’ve been working on the things that I need to work on, and I’ve been getting extra minutes as well, which they kind of correspond, and then I can kind of show the people what I can do.”
Piol has also been receiving plenty of advice and tips from close friends like Bayern Munich youngster Nestory Irankunda, Toure and co.
It is an unbreakable bond that dates back to their upbringing in Adelaide.
“Adelaide is very small, whether people from Adelaide like it or not,” Piol said smiling.
“When you’re in a place and there’s so many different people doing the same thing, you kind of all know each other.
“I guess when you get into a team together, like me and Mo were in the NTC – me, Mo, Bernardo, Panashe Madanha was with us as well, Ethan Alagich, Ethan Cox. So there’s a couple of us, to be fair. When you’re in a team together, you build that friendship.
“We’re all 14, so even outside of football, we’re all best friends as well. I stayed really close with Mo, just because we’re kind of similar people, like with the way we like to joke around, our perspective on life. That’s how I met all the brothers, Musa and Al-Hassan.
“Then Nestor joins the group. Then the Yengi brothers because they’re all from Adelaide. So we all just from Adelaide. We just all support each other, like you see it on social media.
“Any boys from Adelaide, we all just support them, the ones that are coming up, the ones that have gone on further. We all just support each other. That’s just the South Australian culture.”
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In the meantime, Piol is keen to let his football do the talking and the rest “will take care of itself”.
“Like every young Australian kid at one point, you want to play at the highest level,” Piol said.
“I believe if I do the things I’m doing now, if I keep working hard, scoring goals, playing well, having an impact when I’m playing, not just playing, but playing with a purpose, playing to show people what I can do, I believe the rest will take care of itself.”
“I know there are eyes on Australia now, more than there was before. I think just even the boys that are in Europe now them doing well it makes it easier for us here in the A-League because people see, okay, players can go to Europe and do well.
“It’s very positive and I think if things just continue going the way they’re going and onwards and upwards, then everything will fall into place.”
