Manly United Men’s 1st Grade starts its season this Friday night at Cromer Park with the opening game against St George City.
It marks the first official night in charge for new Head Coach, Vladimir Knežević.
Born in Serbia, Vlado, as he is known, has an extensive resume of playing and coaching in Europe, where he helped nearly 50 players develop into fully-fledged professional footballers.
Now settled on the Northern Beaches with his family, MUFC caught up with Vlado in the lead up to Friday’s game.
MUFC: Vlado, this Friday, the first game. How are you and the boys feeling about it?
Vlado: We are very excited for the start of the season, and we’ve been waiting for the season to start because the pre-season has been long.
We try to prepare the team for all year and now we are finally all together for the last couple of weeks, and I hope it will be okay for a first game with a lot of young players from Manly involved.
MUFC: Will get to the younger lads in a moment, but the senior experienced players, you always need strong leaders in your team. Their mentality and helping the group, how has that been?
Vlado: All the boys like Jesse (Piriz), Aaron (O’Driscoll) Mackenzie (Syron), Darcy (Burgess) and (Ben) Koop have been great. Very good attitude. And for the young boys, they are all seen as a big brother, and they accept the role to help everyone be better on the field. Me, as a coach, I like to give advice, be in charge of the training process, but when I played football, I learned more from my teammates who are older than me.
MUFC: The club has a proud history of developing players for professional careers. Obviously, playing senior football compared to under 20’s or 18’s is a big step up, so from the younger guys in the squad, what are you expecting?
Vlado: In our club, we have a good youth pathway and a couple of boys deserve that opportunity to play NPL 1 because for us, like a club, it’s most important to promote younger boys and create maybe tomorrow players for a national team or to push to be professional. That’s our target for our next couple of years.
We don’t know about that big step for us, because in this moment we have around 15, 16 players who are from our youth ranks, but who deserve the chance to jump in and play for us. That’s our target, because we want to see a lot of players coming through.
MUFC: You’ve been in football all your life from a boy in Serbia, to playing and now coaching here in Australia. What do you get out of coaching?
Vlado: A lot of things. I try to push the boys to be more professional, give your best every day because if you miss games, you don’t have a chance to create your memories.
Plus, you don’t get the opportunity for yourself for tomorrow.
I want to help give that opportunity but for that, the players need to be ready every time and motivated to give your best – for you, for your team, for your teammates, and for your club.
MUFC: Travelling through Europe seeing different places and grounds, what do you think of Cromer Park as a home venue?
Vlado: Cromer Park is one of the best facilities in Australia and if I compare to Europe, we have a very good structure at the club. We have a lot of space for training sessions – two synthetic fields, three natural grass – we have a gym, a medical room, a coaching room, lots of things. It’s very professional and good for players and staff.
MUFC: Will you be nervous on Friday night or comfortable that you and the boys have done everything to perform for the next few months?
Vlado: Yes, I’ll be comfortable about that, but my character is totally different and there’s the things I never lie about that! (laughs) I have my character, and sometimes I’m a little bit up, a little bit down, but I hope everything will be okay. I’m calm because I saw the boys give their best. Everyone is working hard. And who deserves to play, he plays. For me, names are not important, they can be older or younger.
I never complain about if you make some mistakes about passing or this or that, but if you never give your 100% all the time, that’s a totally different thing.
MUFC: And lastly, if anyone involved in football sees you around the Northern Beaches or at Cromer Park, you’re happy to talk football with them anytime?
Vlado: Yes! All the time I talk about football with friends, so I’m happy to talk anytime! A lot already do say hi to me and I hope to see them on Friday night at Cromer Park to help support the club.
Friday’s First Grade game kicks off at 7.30pm, with Manly United’s title defence in the Under 20’s starting at 5.30pm.
The night also includes the jersey presentation for the club’s Mixed JDL squads, with The Far Post bar and bistro open for dinner and drinks.
