Database of 730,000 players will drive hunt for visa signings but City’s recruitment questions abound writes Tom Smithies.
More than a week after the Grand Final, the reverberations continue to be felt at Casey Fields.
What was already shaping up to be the most seismic off-season in the history of Melbourne City is segueing into a full-blown rebuild.
The news that Richard van der Venne and Thomas Lam are leaving the club to return to Europe for personal reasons doesn’t just take significant experience and football intelligence out of the City dressing room.
With Valon Berisha’s loan expiring, captain Scott Jamieson retiring and Socceroos Tom Glover, Jordan Bos and Aiden O’Neill all heading for Europe – as well as several academy graduates seeking more game time elsewhere- head coach Rado Vidosic suddenly has three visa spots and a great deal of experience to fill.
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The challenge could yet expand further, with attacker Marco Tilio also keen to make the move to Europe, and hoping his current involvement in the Maurice Revello tournament in France with the Olyroos may crystalise overseas interest.
All of this on the back of a 6-1 hammering at the hands of Central Coast Mariners in the Grand Final; a result that had already asked significant questions of how Vidosic and his players would respond.
In the minutes following such a crushing defeat, Vidosic chose his words with care.
“It looked like they wanted to win the game more than us, they outplayed us first half, they bullied us… and we just thought that maybe someone else is going to do it for me and it just didn’t happen.”
The City coach looked shellshocked, and with some reason.
For all that 2022-23 was an unmitigated success for City right up to the opening whistle of the grand final – dominating the A-League table all season, on top since Round 2, winners of the Premier’s Plate and qualifying for a fourth straight grand final – the way Vidosic’s team fell apart needs a post-mortem.
As KEEPUP detailed last week, this the first chance for Vidosic to shape the squad in his own way, having succeeded Patrick Kisnorbo mid-season.
Several familiar A-Leagues faces are expected to join for next season.
Goalkeeper Jamie Young has left Western United and is widely expected to succeed Glover – though he is 37, the signing would fit the model explained by City football director Michael Petrillo to KEEPUP last week, where an experienced player will be signed to bridge the gap until a particular youth player is deemed ready for the first team.
Though popular second choice keeper Matt Sutton has left, City have another highly-rated young goalkeeper on their books in James Nieuwenhuizen (a Young Socceroo at 19).
Meanwhile there is increasing speculation that midfielders Terry Antonis and Steven Ugarkovic, both free agents after leaving Western Sydney and Wellington respectively, will join the City roster as, effectively, replacements for Berisha and O’Neill.
Antonis last played a game 13 months ago, having fallen out of favour at Western Sydney, but is expected to undergo a significant fitness program in the off-season.
City are keen to reap the benefits of their academy program, not least as Vidosic was previously its technical director, and the squad already contains teenage talents in striker Max Caputo and midfielder Emin Durakovic.
But another face may come through the ranks, with Harry Politidis – the 21-year-old captain of City’s NPL team – seen as a potential successor to Jamieson and Bos at left-back.
In terms of the visa spots that the exits of Berisha, van der Venne and Lam open up, the club are unlikely to rush to fill them until later in the off-season for two reasons – first, to wait to see where the most pressing vacancies are, and also to see which players come on to the market as free agents once contracts expire in Europe.
City, who were approached for comment for this article, have the capacity to move quickly to identify potential signings thanks to the database of more than 730,000 players they can access, all rated according to an exhaustive list of attributes.
As an example, when defender Richard Windbichler was offered a contract to return to Korea in December 2020, days before the start of the A-League season, City had a replacement on Australian soil and serving COVID quarantine within three weeks. Nuno Reis had left Levski Sofia six months before and his profile chimed with the attributes City were seeking.
City as a club do not rush into decisions, and will feel comfortable that the targeted replacement of key players will bear fruit for what Vidosic says will become a determination to right the apparent wrongs of this season’s Grand Final – no matter what happens to his squad.
“The off season is quite long so we just have to wait and see – there’s been interest for some of our players,” he noted after the grand final.
“(But even) if we turn over half the team, all the new players will look forward to this experience and all the old players will be hurting when they come back and I’m quite positive that everyone is going to give everything that they’ve got to correct this day in, in one year’s time.”
