It's a handle that makes him smile, although he doesn't kid himself that the moniker is based on his ability being comparable to the great Barcelona and Argentina international.

It's more to do with the fact that, like the Albiceleste veteran, Broxham is, to put it kindly, "height challenged" yet still manages to play at the heart of his team's defence, as does the real Mascherano.

And like the Argentine, he is also able to play in midfield - the position in which he broke into the Victory first team and played for the Olyroos as they qualified for the Beijing Games - as well as at right-back.

The Mascherano tag is an affectionate testament to the way his teammates feel about the kid from Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs who has proved the doubters - and there have been many over the years - wrong.

For most of his career Broxham, who stands around 1.70 metres, has been dubbed "diminutive" or "pint sized", and told by many that he is too small to make it in the professional game.

Only little men with prodigious talent - Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Mascherano - can hope to make it at the highest level is the received wisdom.

That may be true if we are talking about the absolute top class, but there are plenty of combative, committed, tenacious and talented smaller men like Broxham playing and making a living -  and a difference to their teams - in the professional game.

Archie Thompson and Kevin Muscat, the star striker and the inaugural captain and coach of the club, are the two men most associated with Victory.

But Broxham has been there almost as long and while he may not have played such key roles in the club's championship years as his two better-known colleagues, he has always been an important, if at times almost invisible, cog in the Victory machine since joining the club as a teenager in the 2006-07 season.

The midfielder had been a prominent Victorian junior while with Knox City's youth teams. Ernie Merrick, who before taking over at Victory had coached the state's best juniors at the Victorian Institute of Sport, knew who he was.

Broxham had gone to English club Derby for trials when he left school but had not been taken on, returning home with the "you're too small" refrain in his ears.

Back then Victory did not have a youth team but Merrick brought in some talented teenagers to train with the first team and help make up the numbers during practice matches.

That was how Broxham first came to be with the navy blues.

"I got given a gear stewards job. Me, Sammi Sivic [forced to retire early through injury], Cam Watson [now of Adelaide United], Danny Visevic [who spent last season in the NPL Victoria with Melbourne Knights], Spira (current Socceroo defender Matty Spiranovic of Western Sydney) all of them were coming and going ... a few of us were training on with the first team.

"It was a pretty loose job description - they could ask me to do anything, but I was a kid and just pleased to be there."

He got his chance in unusual circumstances.

"We won the league that year with four games to go. The team was then travelling to Perth for a game and Ernie said 'We will sign you so I can leave Kev [Muscat] and a few others at home so they won't have to travel close to the finals'.

"We drew that game 2-2 and then lost the last two. I didn't get any win bonuses," he recalls.

"I was on the bench for the two semis, but came on in the grand final win over Adelaide."

That was the match that Victory famously won 6-0, and for Broxham it was a magical beginning to a career he had earlier feared he might not have.

"Brebsy [Grant Brebner, the Scottish midfielder who had been in doubt right up to match day] was struggling with a quad injury and I came on for him when it was 4-0. It was a fantastic feeling that day."

Things did not, however, run smoothly the following year as Victory missed out on the finals.

And although they won the title in the A-League's fourth season, Broxham did not play much of a role and there was even talk of him leaving the club.

"There was one year I was being spoken of as possibly going on loan to Gold Coast. It didn't end up happening. But it was hard in that fourth season. I had eight appearances for a total of not many minutes. There's times like that, you are in your early 20s, you want to play, so it had come across my mind to leave. But the coach wanted me to stay, so I ended up opting to stay."

It's that commitment to the club, allied to his versatility, that has made Broxham a favourite with his teammates (for whom he acts as dressing room DJ and music mixmaster) and supporters who see him as part of the furniture.

He is still young - he only turns 27 in January - and if he avoids injury and retains his form there is no reason why he could not set an appearance record for Victory.

But that is in the unpredictable future.

For Broxham, the present is all that matters and helping Victory maintain its unbeaten run by seeing off Melbourne City in Saturday night's second derby of the season is top of mind. And adding to his championship medal haul at the end of the season.

Nor does he mind where he plays.

Such is his commitment to the cause that he didn't even make a fuss after round one this year when he was left out of the starting XI to accommodate returning Socceroo and club captain Mark Milligan for the game against Adelaide.

Broxham had actually skippered Victory in that round-one demolition of the Wanderers and scored a goal, but found himself on the bench at the Adelaide Oval a week later.

"At the club we are at, nobody is guaranteed a start. It was disappointing at the time, but I have moved on. Kev [coach and former teammate Muscat] made his decision on what he thought was the best team to win the game and I accepted it.

"I knew Millsy was coming back, so I wanted to put pressure on him and Carl [another former Socceroo in Carl Valeri] in that first game. I did that and gave the manager a dilemma.

"The night before the game in Adelaide he told me I am going this way and you won't be playing. I said no problem, I'll chat to you about it when the game is over.

"During the week I knocked on his door, said obviously I want to play each week, so I will keep pushing those boys. We are still unbeaten and near the top of the table, so he is making the right decisions.

"When you are at a good club with a lot of good players you have to accept the situation."

Broxham, perhaps to the surprise of the knockers, has become one of those good players.