The 22-year-old was surprised but not unhappy when he saw the image on social media. “Mohamed Touré is … The Ter-Mo-Nator,” the poster mock-up read, crafted in Photoshop or an AI tool, with Touré’s left eye glowing red. “Target acquired.”

Touré – whose nickname is Mo – has sparked the most excitement in Australian football fans for a Socceroos striker since Mark Viduka, who emerged at Melbourne Knights close to four decades ago. As one of the faces of the Socceroos’ current World Cup campaign, the hype is something Touré is starting to get used to.

The comparison to Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, is new. “Maybe some people have described me with similar traits, of being always serious or playing hard, but no one’s ever called me a Terminator,” Touré says from camp in California ahead of the opening clash against Turkey on Sunday.

Is he the ruthless killer of the original film, or the one who saves John Connor in the second? “No, I’m the friendly one,” he says. “I can’t be evil.”

It’s a consistent theme in the conversation – Touré being drawn towards good and away from bad. When asked to describe how he would like to be introduced to Australians tuning into football for the first time in four years, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. “Some people love to be superstars,” he says. “I just want to be seen as a good person.”

Strikers can have a reputation for being selfish, for enjoying the spotlight, for counting goal tallies more than team victories. Touré runs like one, finishes like one: he is the on-field archetype of a lead forward, with pace and nous and skill. But Touré is no showboater, rather a key cog in Tony Popovic’s cohesive unit designed to frustrate and surprise their Group D opponents.

His parents having fled Liberia, Touré was born in a refugee camp in Guinea, before arriving in Australia as a seven-month-old. His parents were there in that camp for 14 years. “I have a story before football, the same story after football,” Touré says.

The current story started in Adelaide, where the young striker showed promise after debuting in the A-League Men as a 15-year-old in 2020. He remains the youngest scorer in the league’s history. Then, there was a debut in France for Ligue 1 side Reims at 19. In 2024, a double against powerhouse club Brondby when playing for Randers FC in the Danish Superliga. Two goals for the Socceroos against New Zealand in late 2025. And, after a move in January, nine in 11 league matches for Norwich in the Championship last season.

Touré’s football story is not, however, one of linear improvement. There has been regular news of injury, and many transfer windows with him on the move. He has played at five clubs in four years in France, Denmark and now England. The injury curse has hung over him since his time at Adelaide United. The balance between his explosive speed, a growth spurt and the demands of professional football proved more difficult to resolve than his moral compass.

“When I went to Europe, some of those injuries followed along and I re-injured them and re-injured them,” he says. “I feel like I had to do something, and I had to change something or they would have [kept] occurring, re-occurring.”

Touré now follows a regimen focused on resilience. “To be stronger in these places where I don’t pick up these little annoying injuries in the season,” he says. “The big muscles: the hamstrings, the groins, and the quads.”

Touré’s recovery is a boon for the Socceroos. He was able to play 81 minutes up front in the warm-up defeat to Mexico. Against Switzerland on Sunday, he and most of the other starters were on the bench, but Touré was introduced for the final 20 minutes.

Touré is one of six African Australians in the 26-player squad, including Awer Mabil, Lucas Herrington, Tete Yengi and Jason Geria. His closest teammate is Nestory Irankunda; their friendship has bloomed since meeting through football during school in Adelaide. Irankunda is, like Touré, a refugee but his family hails from Burundi via a camp in Tanzania, on the opposite side of the continent.

“We are from different parts, but – especially in Adelaide, I can’t talk about other cities – we don’t really see these things, we just see ourselves as a big African community. Now, of course, within the African community, we have different communities, but Nestor is just another African boy, Mabil is just another African guy as well. We all grew up loving the same thing, so we just connected that way.”

Liberia are not at this World Cup, yet they will be represented by their diaspora. Haji Wright is a striker for the USA and scored twice against the Socceroos in a friendly last year. Marseille forward Timothy Weah, son of George Weah – the only African Ballon d’Or winner and former president of Liberia – also plays for the World Cup hosts.

Touré’s father Amara keeps him updated with news from Liberia, and Touré still feels a close connection to his parents’ homeland. “Oh man, it’s always going to feel like home when I hear the word Liberia,” he says. “It’s where I feel like I belong, it’s my home, no matter how tough it gets or no matter how rough it gets, I will never abandon it, I’ll never stop caring for it.” There is a passion for Guinea, too, and “obviously” Australia.

Touré has an appreciation for the Socceroos who have come before him. Australia’s male footballers were, for more than a generation, unlucky losers who could never quite take the final step to reach the World Cup. Touré’s cohort, however, knows nothing but qualification.

When John Aloisi scored the penalty to book the team’s place in Germany, Touré was one year old. He was barely walking when Viduka led the Socceroos on to the field for the famous win over Japan in Kaiserslautern 20 years agothis month.

“We were literally talking about it at the table because in our dinner room we have photos of all the past teams and the XIs, we were trying to see how many players we knew,” he says. “Where they were playing … it was sick, it was very nice.”

The discussion – of Harry Kewell at Liverpool, of Tim Cahill at Everton, of Vince Grella and Mark Bresciano at Serie A clubs – enlivened ambition within the young group. Australia’s best footballers have rarely gone all the way to the world’s biggest clubs.

“We were saying it because on our table we have a lot of young boys and we were like, that’s our goal as well for one day. People to look at our squad and be, ‘Oh, that’s Mo from Real Madrid, that’s Nestor from Bayern, that’s Lucas from Liverpool.”

Since the days of Aloisi and Viduka, Australia have not produced a complete striker proven in a top European league. Mitch Duke performed remarkably in Qatar, and hybrid winger Mathew Leckie has had his moments, but the likes of Jamie Maclaren, Tomi Juric, Nikita Rukavytsya and Josh Kennedy have been more one-dimensional: finishers, hares or target men. Touré has all the ingredients of an elite, line-leading forward: strength, quickness and skill. Any comparison to Viduka, however, he resists immediately. “That’’s crazy, that’s too far, too far.”

The recurring theme in the Terminator movies is a desire to alter the past to secure the future. There has been much commentary about the relative youth of this Socceroos team, filled with Touré, Irankunda, full-back Jordy Bos and central defenders Herrington and Alessandro Circati. The thinking goes they may be better in 2030 or 2034.

Touré is taking nothing for granted. He may be young, but he already knows football’s history cannot be rewritten. “It was a dream of mine to play for the Socceroos,” he says. “Now that I’m here, I don’t have for ever. The boys say that playing for the national team, it comes around quick, so I just want to leave an impact.”