Aquila Peleseuma is a eleven-year-old young footballer of Samoan heritage who has the world at his feet so to speak.
The youngest of three siblings has been offered a pathway to professional football, something not too many Samoan kids or Pasifika youths have achieved.
Especially out in France, where almost all Pasifika families are involved in rugby union at one level or another.
The Wellington-born has been signed by renowned French football club, Paris FC, whose premier team plays in the top French Football competition.
It is something both his parents, dad Opetera and mum Stacee, are proud of and grateful for.
Proud, because their son has decided on a sports pathway none of them ever thought would be taken up by their children, especially because of their other sporting backgrounds.
Opetera is a rugby player. He made his mark in New Zealand early and made the national under-20s side before stints with the Wellington Lions and the Hurricanes.
He played for the Hutt Marist Old Boys club in the local Wellington Rugby Union competition.
Basketball and athletics were also his other sports favourites, while mum Stacee also had stints in athletics and basketball.
Football was never really on their mind as a sport that any of their children would take up.
Well, Azariah, 15 and Aila Rose, 12, did not but Aquila picked it up, while playing with kids around their Paris neighbourhood.
A friend’s dad saw his talents, approached the parents and got him signed up with Paris FC.
Now, he has the future in front of him, with contracts ready to be signed by 2029, which will see him go through the club’s Football Academy and push him into the professional football pathway.
Paris FC will take him on board from next year, put him through the college system for pre-formation and then push him into their Academy.
Opetera said Paris FC will officially contract him from 2029 “but they have signed him, so that no other club is able to take him from now until he goes to Academy”.
As part of that signing agreement the club will foot his education costs and supply all that he needs to develop both academically and in the sport he now loves to play.
Aquila said he is excited and happy about the opportunity now been offered to him.
Having seen the struggle, the family had to go through, the young man says the Paris FC offer is his for the taking.
“I feel happy about it and it means something great to me, because not all Polynesians can do what I can do at my age,” he said when asked how he feels about his opportunity.
“I am also proud because I don’t know any other Samoan or Pasifika kid who’s playing soccer and in the same position.”
Aquila is a winger and said any kid can achieve what he has been able to at a young age if they listen to their parents and take heed of advice given to them.
“I started with my friends and I started to like it, and so then my best friend’s dad put me up in a club, and then that’s when I started training to just achieve what I got now.
“Listen to your parents, work hard, stay humble, and listen to advice that people give you,” he added.
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