“If I’d have read every word that had been written about me, believed it, and held on to it,” he says, peering through the window to the chattering streetscape, “I don’t think it would have done much good. My head might have exploded.” For all the buzz, contradictions abound with Rogic, and modesty is the first. His on-field audacity – that swagger, that dribbling ability, that lethal first touch – could only belong to someone who possesses supreme self-belief. Rogic doesn’t give interviews often. Certainly not in-depth one-on-ones. He’s wary of the press, their snap judgments, the two-faced habit of cutting down those touted feverishly weeks before. “You know I’m not the biggest fan of these,” he laughs, gesturing as the dictaphone on the table. “The way I see it is pretty simple: I’m going to let my football do the talking. When you start reading the opinions which exist out there, it will do you more harm than good. I listen to my coaches, people in the game, family and friends. They’ll tell you how it really is.” Rogic is barely 21 and has started just 32 professional matches. For context, by the same age, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Neymar were established stars. Even Kewell was a bona fide star at Leeds.

But the boy’s talent is undeniable, and his late-blooming makes the narrative all the more compelling. The attacking midfielder’s parents hail from Serbia, with his Dad growing up in the Lika region (now part of Croatia) while his mum is from Leskovac. They met after migrating to Australia, settling on Canberra to raise a family. Family support is clearly dear to Rogic, who fondly recalls backyard clashes. “My two cousins and my brothers would pick sides, and it would get pretty intense,” he recalls. “Dad loves watching football but never really played himself. My parents certainly weren’t pushing me into football but were still very supportive. I’d be training with a different club, academy or school every night. Driving me around must have been hard on them.” The intellect with which he speaks, and picks his phrases, is very Canberran. He went to Radford College, a private school boasting politicians, authors, actors and Pacific royals among the alumni – and a sporting range from tennis prodigy Nick Kyrgios to Sam Michael, a formula one mechanical engineering wunderkind. “But I wasn’t exactly head of the school debating team, nor much good at chess,” Rogic cheerfully intercepts, fearful of intellectual exaggeration. “The school’s emphasis was solely on academic achievement, not sport. It was funny that I was there, in hindsight. I remember they had a rule that you had to play in the school team, but the level wasn’t great. Capital Football had to write some letters to get me out of there and playing at a better level.”

His club career began at Tuggeranong United from five until 12, then moved to Woden Valley, where he met coach John Mitchell – who Rogic unabashedly ranks as his biggest influence outside his parents – before moving to ACTAS, the Australia National University’s club side and finally Belconnen United in the ACT Premier League. But all he wanted was a break, something beyond Canberra. He couldn’t get it. There was no scholarship to the AIS, not even an A-League youth deal. “I don’t really know why I was always getting overlooked. We’re only talking a few years ago as well. I look at some of the other guys who got in ahead of me and, no disrespect,” his voice trails off. “Let’s just say they didn’t really go on with it.” Yet he never dreamed of doing anything else. His idol was Zinedine Zidane, and he was desperate to emulate Zizou’s steps to the top. Despite wearing an NBA All-Star T-Shirt to this interview, and keenly following the Canberra Raiders (although he counts Benji Marshall as his favourite player), all his energy went into one sport.

Perhaps that’s why he gets a little perturbed when people don’t realise he did it the hard way. “It’s as though people think it all started with the Mariners and it happened overnight,” he says. “It didn’t. Not at all. I was the one who kept getting overlooked. Every time that happened, I just kept going back and working on my game. There was no Plan B if I wasn’t a footballer.” Fortunately, that break eventually came when he won the Nike Chance tournament and subsequently signed with Central Coast, setting the A-League alight in barely a year and earning a move one of world football’s glamour clubs, Celtic. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing since. Game time was rationed out in unfulfilling morsels, which is why he’s been loaned back to Melbourne Victory before the World Cup. “Celtic has been a good experience but I won’t lie, it’s been very tough,” he says. “It’s a serious level, and I don’t think I realised what a big club they actually are – and I don’t think people here understand that. The expectation on the players is just enormous.”

Rogic doesn’t want to upset his parent club, where his contract still has more than three years still to run. They still pay most of his wages, after all, and he understands the demands on manager Neil Lennon. “Everyone wants to play all the time. I’m no different,” he says. “That said, don’t you think it would have been a bit naive to think I was going to walk from Central Coast into the Celtic starting XI? That's not realistic.” The Hoops, it should be mentioned, cakewalked to their 45th league title this week. Won 27, drawn 3, lost 1. “Kris Commons plays in my position. He’s the top scorer [27 in all competitions], he’s played in the English Premier League, he’s a seasoned professional,” Rogic concedes. “He scores almost every week. It’s difficult for anybody to come in and take his place.” Some pundits canned Rogic for moving to a league where the physical outstrips the technical, saying it would impede his development. Rogic rolls his eyes at the suggestion.

“Some of these guys have skill that would blow your mind,” he fires back. “When I arrived, it was probably after two or three weeks, it dawned on me, and I thought: 'This is hard. This is so much tougher and sharper than back home.'" It’s a long way from the Mariners, whose players threatened to revolt recently when a new administrator wanted to ban the squad from wearing shorts and flip-flops to training. “The boys would do anything for you at the Mariners. The culture they had was unbelievable – guys like 'Hutch' [John Hutchinson], Patrick [Zwaanswijk], 'Kwas' [Adam Kwasnik], 'Wilko' [Alex Wilkinson]. The players and [former coach] Graham Arnold created something very special,” he says. “They loved everyone talking them down and being the underdog. That was our fuel, our bond. “At Celtic, there’s guys from all over the world, ready to break each other to get a spot in the team, and then fighting to keep it. You realise then it won’t be an overnight transition.” That transition has been stunted, briefly, by this loan deal to the A-League powerhouses, Melbourne Victory.

“It’s all about game time now and getting myself in the best shape I can be,” he says. “You can’t just sit on the bench in a World Cup year. Melbourne are a big club with expectations as well, so it was an easy decision in the end.” Seeing Rogic narrow his focus on Brazil is exciting for a public still grappling with the monumental challenges of Group B: Chile, the Netherlands and the world champions, Spain. “The draw is pretty amazing, isn’t it? We couldn’t have found a tougher draw if we tried,” he jokes. “But this is the World Cup and it's the best of the best. Sure, it’s extremely difficult but it’s incredibly exciting to have this opportunity.” Where prophecies of doom are being heaped upon the Socceroos, Rogic has a different view. “I don't like that idea. This is a chance for us to prove ourselves as a football country, to measure ourselves and find out where we’re at,” he offers. “I can’t think of a better way than to do that than against teams like this.”

Rogic has goals in Brazil – for the team, for himself – but has a strategy behind keeping them private. “If we say them publicly, people will think we’re only aiming for that,” he said. “Who knows what this team is capable of? If we reach what we’re aiming for, I wonder if that might stop us from going further.” The Socceroos have few landmarks to measure themselves against, having played only twice under Ange Postecoglou. While they lost to Ecuador 4-3 after being reduced to 10 men in London, the blazing first half, with Rogic in the thick of it, was breathtaking. “Now I know I haven’t been in the set-up that long but that was 45 minutes showed we are capable of anything,” he says. “It felt good. And we have something to learn from, because you won’t win if you only play well for 45 minutes.” Postecoglou recently addressed the nation’s football media, and likened the squad’s rejuvenation to that of an empty fuel tank. That’s why he’s going for the kids, and why Rogic is the centrepiece of the aggressive refuelling.

“It's exciting to be a part of that because I think there's a lot of young quality coming through, young guys who want to play against the world's best. That’s pretty cool,” he says, downing his piccolo latte in a single gulp. “But we’ll be ready for them.”