This week on The Players Pod, Robbie Cornthwaite was joined by A-Leagues legends Erik Paartalu and Josh Rose ahead of next week’s Isuzu UTE A-League Grand Final between Melbourne City and Central Coast Mariners.
Melbourne City has changed a lot since the day Erik Paartalu first arrived on their doorstep.
Paartalu joined the club in September 2014, months after they were acquired by the City Football Group (CFG). They had undergone a significant rebrand, shedding the Melbourne Heart name, colours and logo, and taking on their current identity.
When he signed a four-year deal – turning down a marquee contract at the Newcastle Jets – Paartalu said he wanted to join a club with “ambition” and that is something City had in spades.
The club wanted to stamp their authority on the competition early in the piece too, bringing in the likes of Spanish football legend David Villa on a 10-game guest contract, future Socceroo Aaron Mooy and former Chelsea and Fulham winger Damien Duff.
City’s ambition to become a dominant force in the A-Leagues’ has come to fruition over the last few seasons, and they are now only a win away from securing a second Isuzu UTE A-League Championship when they face Central Coast Mariners on June 3 in the Grand Final.
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However, when Paartalu arrived, the club were still undergoing a transition and their new state of the art training facilities in Bundoora remained under construction.
On The Players Pod with Robbie Cornthwaite, Paartalu reflected on the early days of the City rebrand which got the wheels in motion for them to become a destination club for players across the country.
In season 2022-23, you can listen to Robbie weekly on his new KEEPUP podcast – The Players Pod, with Robbie Cornthwaite. Listen below or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
“It was a transition for sure,” Paartalu told The Players Pod.
“We were in demountables, waiting for our training grounds to get built and on the flip side, we had David Villa coming in to training and thinking he was going to be there for 10 games and he stayed for four. I think he saw the demountables and all the the temporary training set up and he said, that’s enough for me. I’ll just spend four weeks here!
“But the guys we had at the club, Damien Duff and (Thomas) Sorensen and Robert Koren, (Patrick) Kisnorbo, Aaron Mooy and (Harry) Novillo. I mean, there were just so many big names at that time but, they certainly had that transition period and then once they became recognised as being the best facilities, doing things the right way, sports science at a different level.
“People wanted to go there, and they wanted to be in Melbourne, obviously, and I think they now are the premier football club that every young player wants to go to because of the network they have as well.”
Paartalu spent a season-and-a-half at City, before joining South Korean side Jeonbuk Motors, and in the years since his departure the club have gone from strength to strength.
City have won multiple pieces of silverware in both the Isuzu UTE and Liberty A-League along with taking home the Australia (then, FFA) Cup in 2016.
In fact, the men’s side hasn’t missed finals since the CFG take-over in 2014.
Despite acknowledging just how strong they have been from an on-field standpoint, the former Brisbane Roar Championship winner believes there’s still “a question mark” which lingers over the reigning premiers.
“The foundation wasn’t set when we were there,” Paartalu said.
“We were transitioning out of being a club that was small minded without being disrespectful, trying to be small minded, just being a part of the A-League being very much the the smaller brother in Melbourne to the Victory boys and they slowly, gradually built their reputation.
“They spent a lot of money, let’s be honest about that whether or not that is the players salaries or is the actual behind the scenes stuff that they’ve actually put in the sports science, the doctors, the training and you can see the squad now they’ve got is very competitive, very hard to beat.
“In terms of having to get success, year in year out, guys like Jamie Maclaren, Scott Jamieson, they’ve been there for quite a few years now and they’ve got all the right ingredients down there.
“But I think for Rado Vidosic, he’s got a big challenge this week going into the the Grand Final and playing against a team that’s got a community right behind them.
“There is still that question mark for Melbourne City. Have they got the supporters? Have they got that fan base? That community feel? I think they’re still trying to build that.”
Cornthwaite was also joined by Josh Rose, who spent time a year at City in the 2016-17 season, after six successful seasons at Central Coast.
Rose felt the “culture” was lacking in his season at the club, but believes things have changed internally since moving on through the likes of former coach Patrick Kisnorbo, captain Scott Jamieson and the former’s successor, Rado Vidosic.
“It was fascinating for me to go from Central Coast Mariners to Melbourne City, one thing I wanted to do was experience a different club,” he said.
“It definitely was a different club in all aspects, from finance to culture to the players around you and everything, but I think in the early days as Erik mentioned, they did spend a lot of money, and I thought that would bring them instant success.
“I felt when I went there, I looked around the players in our change room, it was absolutely incredible for me to see that and we just lacked a little bit of culture. We lacked a little bit of unity, which I think in Australia it gives you so much momentum going forward.
“I think what they’ve done well was bringing in someone like Paddy Kisnorbo as coach and then Jamo (Scott Jamieson) as a captain. With those two together, along with the finances and the structures all in place then and they bring that culture into their group, and since then you can see that the success has come in leaps and bounds.
“Rado has done a good job in the last six months or so to to help steady that ship and I think just continue that culture a little bit, you can see their attacking four as well. It is extremely good.
“Rado touched on it earlier in the year that he lets them play with a little bit of freedom as well, because they are a very structured unit with their style of play and things like that, but players like (Marco) Tilio and those guys, they really excite when they’re allowed to that little bit of extra freedom, which I think they’ve shown this year.”
In Rose’s short stint at City, he was playing alongside Australian football legend Tim Cahill and gun striker Bruno Fornaroli – who had just put together an incredible debut season at the club.
“When I first got the interest to go there, I remember I was taking my boys to school that morning, and my oldest boy looked a bit upset because obviously the talk was I would go there and the family would stay on the coast and he looked a bit upset,” he said.
“I said to him, ‘look I’ll come back as much as I can’, but he said ‘no, Dad, look when you get me a City jersey, I don’t know if I wanna get Cahill’s name on the back. I’m not sure if I want to get Rose on the back or Fornaroli’, who was flying at the time, as well he’d had a fantastic season with Aaron Mooy.
“I said: ‘oh, look, if that’s your biggest worry, mate, I’ll get you one of both, you don’t have to get Rose’, but it was incredible.”
Rose also shared a locker-room with young Daniel Arzani, who was still coming through the ranks of the club’s academy set-up at the time.
The season after Rose’s departure, Arzani had a breakout campaign at City which earned him a Socceroos call-up for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, an overseas transfer to Manchester City and subsequent loan to Celtic.
However, since an ACL injury on debut for The Hoops, Arzani’s career hasn’t taken off in the manner most predicted and he has since returned to the A-Leagues with Macarthur FC.
“Arzani, was a young lad, he was a really good prospect,” he said.
“I hope he can turn things around, but yeah, there was a lot of talent in the change room at the time, so it was really good to go and and learn off these guys, even at that older age.”
