Joshua John Cavallo (born 13 November 1999) is an Australian professional

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

er who plays as a

left back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

and

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

A-League Men A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

club Adelaide United. Cavallo has represented the Australian under-20 national team.

Early life

Joshua John Cavallo was born on 13 November 1999 in

Bentleigh East, Victoria Bentleigh East is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Glen Eira local government area. Bentleigh East recorded a population of 30,159 at the 2021 census. ...

. He is of

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

and Maltese descent.

Career

Youth

Cavallo represented both

Melbourne Victory FC Youth Melbourne Victory Football Club Youth is the youth system of Melbourne Victory based in Melbourne, Victoria. The team plays in the National Premier Leagues, the second level of Australia's soccer pyramid in Australia. The club also competes in ...

and

Melbourne City FC Youth Melbourne City Football Club Youth is the youth system of Melbourne City Football Club based in Melbourne, Victoria. The youth team plays in the NPL Victoria 3, the third tier of Victorian football in Australia. The club also competes in the ...

Western United

On 15 April 2019, Melbourne City announced that Cavallo would leave the club at the expiration of his contract at the end of the 2018–19 season. On 24 June 2019, new

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

side

Western United Western United Football Club is an Australian professional football club. The club is based in the western Melbourne suburb of Truganina, the club aims to represent western Victoria, incorporating the western suburbs of Melbourne; the region ...

announced that Cavallo would join the club ahead of its inaugural season. He made his debut on 3 January 2020 in a 3–2 loss at his previous club. On as a 71st-minute substitute for Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, he earned a

penalty Penalty or The Penalty may refer to: Sports * Penalty (golf) * Penalty (gridiron football) * Penalty (ice hockey) * Penalty (rugby) * Penalty (rugby union) * Penalty kick (association football) * Penalty shoot-out (association football) A p ...

when fouled by goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis, which was converted by

Besart Berisha Besart Berisha (born 29 July 1985) is a Kosovan retired professional footballer who played as a striker. Club career Youth and Hamburger SV Berisha began his youth career at German side Berliner VB 49 academies at age of 9. He then moved to var ...

. Western United announced that Cavallo was leaving the club on 10 February 2021 to seek more playing time with another A-League club.

Adelaide United

On 18 February 2021, Cavallo signed a short-term contract to play for

Adelaide United Adelaide United Football Club is a professional Association Football, soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under North American professional sports league organization#Systems ar ...

. After a successful stint in the 2020–21 A-League, he signed a two-year contract extension on 11 May. He was rewarded with Adelaide United's A-League Rising Star award after a successful 2020–21 campaign, in which he started 15 games and made 18 appearances.

Personal life

Cavallo

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

as gay in October 2021. At the time, there were no other openly gay male footballers playing professional top-flight football. He said in a statement, "I hope that in sharing who I am, I can show others who identify as

LGBTQ+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

that they are welcome in the football community."

Career statistics

References

External links

* 1999 births Living people Sportsmen from Victoria (Australia) Australian soccer players Association football midfielders Gay sportsmen Melbourne Victory FC players Melbourne City FC players Western United FC players Adelaide United FC players National Premier Leagues players A-League Men players Australian LGBT soccer players Australian LGBT sportspeople Australian people of Italian descent Australian people of Maltese descent People from Bentleigh, Victoria Soccer players from Melbourne {{Australia-footy-midfielder-stub