Patrick Kisnorbo and Ben Khalfallah on how they juggle demands of football with fatherhood

Patrick Kisnorbo doesn’t miss a challenge on the pitch and off it he’s not shirking and parenting responsibilities either.

Footballers only have to think of themselves and their teammates when they play on the weekend.

But it’s a completely different story away from the A-League battleground when kids come in to the equation.

The fan sees the only the player and judges them solely on wins and losses, goals scored and conceded.

But there is much more to our sporting heroes than meets the eye — and it’s the human element than can also have a massive bearing on their form.

Both Melbourne City’s Kisnorbo and Melbourne Victory’s Ben Khalfallah freely admit juggling fatherhood and football is a major balancing act.

But City captain Kisnorbo — father to Milana, two, and Valentina, eight months — said he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m very blessed and lucky to have my girls,” Kisnorbo said.

“It can be difficult juggling fatherhood and football, but I love every minute of it, especially when they start calling you ‘dad’ and you realise that football is just such a small part of your life.

“At Christmas I went to the cancer kids unit, my little nephew died at a young age from cancer and you know how devastating that was for my family.

“You go there and, now that I’m a parent myself, you think of your kids and it just hits you and puts things in to perspective. If anything happened to my daughters it would be devastating.”

Kisnorbo has his pre-match routine down pat, and apart from sleeping in the spare room the night before the game, for home matches that routine always involves his little girls.

“On the morning of a game I try to get the girls out of the house, have a walk with them, go to the park nearby and let them run around for 20 minutes, we might go and get a coffee, whatever,” he said.

“I’m still dad and I’m on duty. With my oldest daughter we still watch Home Alone and eat breakfast together on the morning of games, I still feed the youngest one.

“When I go for my nap later on if the girls want to come for a sleep then they can. I just try to keep it relaxed.”

When coming out of contract at the end of last season, Ben Khalfallah famously remained at Victory at the insistence of his six-year-old daughter, Anna.

The Tunisian said he moved to Australia because of Anna and now he says he’s going nowhere because of her as well.