George Timotheou's baby boy inspiring Adelaide United defender ahead of A-League Men's season

Does Adelaide United centre-back George Timotheou's baby boy Marcus have a ball at his feet already?

"Always, always," Timotheou grinned.

"He has about seven different soccer balls in his little playroom. He's always throwing them around and trying to kick them which is awesome."

It goes some way to explaining why 24-year-old Timotheou has already circled a clash with the reigning champions on his calendar.

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Adelaide United open their season travel to Perth to open their A-League Men's campaign against the Glory on Saturday night, but the Reds' first home game in matchweek two carries a little extra weight for Timotheou.

The Reds host Melbourne City at Hindmarsh Stadium on November 27. It's "a massive one for us" as a club, but perhaps even bigger for Timotheou as a person. Somewhere in the stadium stands will be his one-year-old son.

"It's different this year. Obviously last year he was still quite young, so putting him in a crowd with a lot of people was quite, not scary, but loud. It doesn't bode well with his sleep pattern very well," Timotheou said.

"He's a bit older now so he is kind of used to it, he can stay up a little later. It'll be great to have him and my partner in the stands. When the borders open, hopefully my family can come over and watch a few games which is awesome.

"Even just small things like after the game, he can now run on the pitch and have a kick with me."

It's the kind of moment Timotheou feared might never come.

He had already risen to the heights of the Bundesliga with German giants Schalke, marking World Cup winner Mario Gomez in front of 62,000 delirious fans at the Veltins Arena.

At the time he was just 21, dreaming of the heights to which his promising career could soar in the midst of such a rapid rise.

Timotheou's heart had a reduced capacity for blood flow given his bicuspid aortic valve had been operating with two leaflets to control blood flow since birth as opposed to three.

Timotheou left Schalke for Belgium and soon sought a loan to to ALM club Western United before a standard medical left him staring down the barrel of an early retirement.

His bicuspid aortic valve was not regulating blood flow as it should have, leaving the soccer prospect to have a cow valve grafted to his heart in what was effectively life-saving surgery before Timotheou managed to pull off a return to the game.

"It just makes you more aware and makes you treasure and value playing more, while also still valuing your health as number one. Football doesn't really mean anything to me if I don't have my family and my son by my side," Timotheou said.

"At the end of the day I have to look after myself first before I think about football, so I'm just glad I am past that stage in my life. It's still an ongoing thing where I have to monitor it, but it's really good to put that to bed.

"It's not like I have to have surgeries every year or anything like that, but after you have any form of heart surgery, you should be getting checked every three months. Once your cardiologist and your specialist are happy with it, they extend you and you see them every six months and then every 12 months.

"Normally, since I found out about my condition, I've been seeing someone at the minimum annually. I've been seeing people in Adelaide since I moved here, whenever I'm back home in Canberra I try to see my cardiologist too.

"It's an ongoing check-up where they make sure everything is okay and I'm feeling good. It was obviously very asymptomatic and something was going on structurally internally. You just have to keep an eye on it and make sure everything is good."

Timotheou is one of a handful of Canberra products plying their trade in the ALM. The leader of the pack?

That would be Nikolai Topor-Stanley, who is closing in on the competition's all-time games record after joining Western United this season.

Western United lost a leader among men when Andrew Durante announced his retirement as the most-capped ALM player of all-time with 358 games to his name.

Coach John Aloisi needed an experienced head, and it just so happened the man trailing Durante on that list was on the hunt for a new club. Topor-Stanley joins Western United looking to add to his 344 ALM caps.

Fellow ACT product Steven Lustica joins forces with Topor-Stanley at Western United against the Melbourne Victory, with the latter club bolstered by the return of Canberra-born Jason Geria following a stint in Japan.

But before all that Melbourne City will open the ALM season when they host the Brisbane Roar at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium on Friday night, kicking off a campaign in which every club shares the same burning ambition.

For Adelaide, that means "to do one better than last year".

"Obviously we reached the semis but we faced a pretty good Sydney FC in that semi so it was always going to be a massive ask," Timotheou said.

"The goal for this year is to basically go one step or even two steps further, making it to that grand final and winning it. That's any team's ambition every year, you strive for success.

"Obviously we lost a lot of key players, we've brought some good ones in. It doesn't really change the team culture or the club's ambition, so hopefully we just go one step further."

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