For the first but hopefully not the last time, Kusini Yengi has led the way for Australian soccer this week. In the midst of his ongoing audition to become the Socceroos’ new go-to striker, Yengi was front and centre of the win that ended Portsmouth’s seven-year stint in England’s League One and the raucous celebrations that followed.

After scoring their opening goal in a 3-2 victory over Barnsley to clinch the title, Yengi was crowd surfing in the middle of Fratton Park, waving around an inflatable kangaroo as thousands of fans who had invaded the pitch for the third time that evening held him aloft, as if he was the trophy. Then he was leading chants with supporters who congregated inside pubs and on the streets. It’s the stuff that any Australian kid yearns to experience in Europe when they make the leap.

Up Pompey: Kusini Yengi and Portsmouth are going up.Credit: Getty

This season has been Yengi’s first outside the A-League, and thus his first experience of the emotional roller coaster that comes with promotion and relegation – a system Australia has long yearned for but does not have, for reasons so voluminous and contestable that an entire newspaper of its own would be required to go through all sides of the argument.

It is what it is, but Yengi is loving it.

“You notice it straight away,” he said.

“From the fans and the atmosphere, and in the city itself – when I’m just going around the shops and whatnot, and people recognise me, the first thing to talk about is promotion, and how much it means to them. You see it in the fans, you hear it. It’s crazy. I don’t know if it’s just Pompey itself, or if that’s just how it is everywhere with promotion and relegation and so much at stake, but it’s awesome.”

‘No one wants to play second league football. You play second league football for that opportunity to push yourself into the highest level.’

With any luck, a whole bunch of others will go one better in the coming weeks.

While Yengi has lifted himself into England’s second tier, putting Portsmouth one step away from their first season in the Premier League since 2009-10, some of his Socceroos teammates could conceivably end up in one of the “big five” European competitions next season.