Former Socceroos defender Tony Vidmar is looking forward to his new role as Adelaide United’s development coach.
The former Socceroo said he was looking forward to working with United’s youth team which he believes will benefit both the Hyundai A-League and Australia’s emerging players.
“Now this is their opportunity to get into a professional environment and who knows, the next few years there could be players that come through the youth team,” he said.
“Australia, for so many years, has produced a lot of good players and unfortunately some have gone overseas at a young age and have not really developed.”
“So hopefully we can keep them here as long as we can and give them a good base so when they do pursue a career overseas that they have a solid grounding.”
“We’ve lost a lot of young players overseas to clubs and we don’t know where they are.”
Vidmar said he may also be called upon to help older brother Aurelio with the senior side, but at the moment he’s happy with how the South Australian team has been performing.
“The defence has been good so I don’t think we need to touch anything. (But) during the course of the season defenders can get into sloppy or bad habits and that’s something we look at and rectify,” he said.
Vidmar sees the opportunity to work at United as a significant launching point in his transition from player to coach.
“It’s definitely something I wanted to do. I spent close to 15 years in Europe and played under quite a few good coaches so I’ve learnt a lot from them and hopefully I can pass that onto the younger boys coming through,” Vidmar said.
