'Amazing' 15-year journey started by Aussie football's greatest scorer looks set to end in 2026: What a way to go out

There's something a bit poetic about Adelaide City in 2026. After completing a Premiership and Championship double in NPL South Australia, the famous black and white is back on the national stage for the first time in 23 years, competing in the Australian Championship in what is their 80th anniversary season.

Fittingly, their captain throughout the campaign has been Nicholas Bucco, the 36-year-old attacker who has played over 350 matches across a decorated career with City. Bucco has been a fixture at the club for 15 straight seasons, since joining from rivals Adelaide Blue Eagles after being 'chased for about six months' by club and Australian football icon Damian Mori, who was head coach at the time.

In the decade-and-a-half since, the veteran has remained loyal despite richer offers from elsewhere in South Australia and others from Victoria, winning three Premierships and three Championships in the process. However, he is set to hang up his boots at the end of the Championship campaign, after a journey that started all the way back in 2012.

"It was a big, big decision for me (to leave Blue Eagles and join Adelaide City) - and I guess I sort of knew that it was the right decision because Damian Mori was one of the best coaches at the level in the country, not just Adelaide," Bucco toldfootball360. "I always knew that it was the right decision to make and it turned out that way.

To this day, Mori remains the greatest goal scorer in Australian league history with 224 goals across the A-League and National Soccer League, with much of his legacy forged during seven different stints at Adelaide City. His influence lives on at the club through Bucco and his son Joshua Mori, who has recently arrived for this Championship campaign.

"(We were) always working on finishing and goal scoring, and his knowledge about the ability to score goals and just his knowledge in general of the game (stood out), Bucco recalled. "Especially when I came across, because other clubs and other teams did things differently, and his specific way was very educational in a sense where this is how we do it, this is what you need to do.

I learnt so much in the first year. There was a period of doubt there where I think that he was sort of running out of patience with me.

But credit to him, he stayed patient with me. He allowed me to express myself and he got the best out of me.

He added: I think to this day we still carry on his legacy of finishing and goal scoring where we still work on it now and we apply it today. With his son Josh Mori being back with us for this Aus Championship, all the things that he's taught us, we carry it on."