Portsmouth and Socceroos defender Hayden Matthews reflected on his “surreal” reunion with fellow Sydney FC product Adrian Segecic at the EFL Championship club.
Matthews and Australian counterpart Segecic are Portsmouth teammates following the latter’s arrival at Fratton Park on a free transfer from the Sky Blues in the Isuzu UTE A-League.
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The 21-year-old is now back playing alongside fellow academy product Segecic, who shared the 2024-25 Isuzu UTE A-League Golden Boot with Adelaide United’s Archie Goodwin before Portsmouth came calling.
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“It’s very surreal having him here, when you actually think about it. We are two people who joined Sydney at the same time, with the same goal of making it to Europe and playing football,” Matthews told The News, with the former Sydney FC duo joined by Central Coast Mariners product Jacob Farrell and Brisbane Roar graduate Thomas Waddingham.
“Even featuring in the first team together at Sydney was pretty surreal. Now we’ve both come over to England in not only the same league, but the same club – and it’s great being able to continue this same journey together.
“Segga is one of my best friends, we’re Sydney born and bred, while our parents have always got along really well too. Our dads speak every week, I don’t even know what they talk about. Dad loves a phone call, he calls everyone.
“The first time we met, we were playing in an under-10s tournament, with our teams meeting in the final. We lost 5-3 and I think he scored all five goals.
“A year later we played each other in the Borneo Cup in Malaysia and he won again, this time on penalties. He’s still 2-0 up as we’ve been team-mates since.
“We both joined Sydney at the same time in 2013, in the same the under-13s age group when we were aged 12, going on 13.
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“To be honest, he was always a bit ahead of me. Sydney do really well at playing people up, he was probably one of the more advanced players in the team at the time. He was with the first-team from 16, which was crazy.
“We still trained together all the time and, although we still played a large number of youth-team games in the same team, it could have been more.
“Before I came to Pompey, we’d spoken a little about the possibility of being in England together. I had interest previously and he knew he was out of contract at the end of the season and didn’t know where he would end up.
“We were pondering on the possibility of this all happening – and it’s kind of cool it has.”
Featured image: Portsmouth
