Popovic signs with western Sydney A-League
The A-League’s new western Sydney franchise will unveil Tony Popovic as their inaugural coach on Thursday after finalising a deal.
It’s understood Popovic signed after final talks with Football Federation Australia officials on Wednesday, putting the first major block in place as the team prepares to enter the competition in 2012/13.
The appointment, believed to be on a four-year deal, will be announced at a media conference at 1200 (AEST) on Thursday.
It comes after Popovic quit his post and was formally released as assistant coach of Crystal Palace in England, and knocked back an offer from Sydney FC earlier this week.
Sydney FC installed Ian Crook as their coach on Monday.
After assistant coaching roles with Sydney FC and Crystal Palace, Popovic is set for his first head coaching job.
Popovic will be charged with the considerable task of building the club’s squad from scratch and will turn his immediate focus to player recruitment.
Adelaide’s former A-League player of the year Marcos Flores, Carlos Hernandez, Issey Nakajima-Farran, Tarek Elrich, Kasey Wehrman, Ali Abbas, Michael Thwaite, Adam Griffiths and Ante Covic are among players to have been linked with the club.
Popovic will also be able to draw on his coaching and playing experiences playing in England, Asia and the Middle East in recruiting a squad.
Sydney-born Popovic started his playing career with Sydney United before spells with Japan’s Sanfrecce Hiroshima, Crystal Palace, Qatar’s Al Arabi and Sydney FC.
He was capped 59 times for Australia in 12 years and was part of the Socceroos squad at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
The new franchise will likely wait to announce a team name with a series of public forums settling on Athletic, Wanderers, Strikers, Wolves and Rangers as the leading contenders with the team colours tipped to be red, black and white.
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May 17th 2012 @ 7:59am
Australian Rules said | May 17th 2012 @ 7:59am | Report comment
Congrats to Pop and good luck in season 2012/13.
May 17th 2012 @ 8:49am
MelbCro said | May 17th 2012 @ 8:49am | Report comment
I hope you don’t come to regret this decision Tony
May 17th 2012 @ 10:51am
Futbanous said | May 17th 2012 @ 10:51am | Report comment
Wouldnt be the first coach or the last to regret a decision,ask Rini Coolen.
May 17th 2012 @ 2:09pm
Kasey said | May 17th 2012 @ 2:09pm | Report comment
“There are only two kinds of coaches — those who have been fired, and those who will be fired.”
All up. good get, the fans at the fan forums overwhelmingly wanted Popovic.
Also a good move by FFA not to blow their load on the team name & colours just yet – although they probably haven’t decided, signed off on the domain names tied up the loose ends etc yet. to be honest. We often criticize the FFA for being largely clueless regarding how the media works, but this WSFC thing has football in the newspaper in Origin week for crying out loud. Milk it for all its worth. The Name and colours are the pretties around the edges – they can spend a bit more time getting it right now that Poppa has been named and Lyall is running the recruitment of a front office staff. Now that the coach has been named, the team can be assembled – only 20-odd weeks until the new season kicks off. I’m really looking forward to seeing the squad take shape – I hope it has a lot of players in it from the WS region. That way if they suck from the get-go, the locals can still get behind ‘their’ team.
If the FFA are really on the ball( a big stretch – of course) , they’ll wait until mid-June and when the other 9 teams are releasing their membership brochures, they’ll make a big song and dance about the memberships for all clubs being released and will release the WSFC memberships and team name/colours on the same day. Guaranteed top billing on Sydney sports broadcasts.
May 17th 2012 @ 4:39pm
dusko said | May 17th 2012 @ 4:39pm | Report comment
i hope western sydney don’t come to reget this decision.
May 17th 2012 @ 7:55pm
Bludger said | May 17th 2012 @ 7:55pm | Report comment
How many teams did western Sydney have in the old NSL? Can never remember them drawing many fans, so it would be a surprise for me if it was a raging success.
Marconi, Croatia, Melita, Parra Power, Blacktown to name but a few.
Problem is, and we need to underline it early on. The ‘soccer people’ out there are ‘Euro soccer snobs’ of the highest calibre. They will only follow the top leagues and glamour clubs at that. They will follow a Man U, a Chelsea a Arsenal, but not a Fulham or a non trendy team.
Don’t get your hopes up people, it is not as if top level soccer has never been to west Sydney. The AFL team has a better shot at working in my book.
May 17th 2012 @ 8:16pm
Johnno said | May 17th 2012 @ 8:16pm | Report comment
Don’t worry everyone Popa is a west sydney born and bread. West sydney will win the A-league in there 1st season. Popa knows best.
May 17th 2012 @ 8:32pm
Bludger said | May 17th 2012 @ 8:32pm | Report comment
Are you a member of his family or something?
They will be bottom 4 at best in the first season, drawing maybe 10k average attendances.
Year 5 will be the test, if they can still draw 10k.
I don’t see it happening.
May 17th 2012 @ 8:54pm
The Cattery said | May 17th 2012 @ 8:54pm | Report comment
Johnno
the yeast puns were on the other thread
May 18th 2012 @ 6:55am
Kasey said | May 18th 2012 @ 6:55am | Report comment
Ahh Bludger, there’s always somebody ready willing and able to poo-poo football in this country. Time will tell, but the buzz on the ground is that this team will not only be successful off the pitch, but has the potential to be the biggest football club in the HAL. You might not have noticed, but the A-League is a completely different paradigm to the NSL the proof is right there in front of your eyes.e.g:, why is Melbourne Victory such a drawcard considering the many NSL teams that represented Melbourne?
May 17th 2012 @ 9:45am
Christo the Daddyo said | May 17th 2012 @ 9:45am | Report comment
Interesting. Both Sydney clubs have ended up with first time senior coaches…
May 17th 2012 @ 9:55am
striker said | May 17th 2012 @ 9:55am | Report comment
Theres a sense of good feeling about this club i reckon it will be a success especially with a local boy Popovic in charge.
May 17th 2012 @ 10:53am
Futbanous said | May 17th 2012 @ 10:53am | Report comment
Well they’ve got the local connection in the coach,so will be interesting to see who he recruits.
May 17th 2012 @ 10:23am
luke said | May 17th 2012 @ 10:23am | Report comment
Crook is not a first time senior coach. He managed Newcastle for a few years in the NSL.
May 17th 2012 @ 10:50am
TomC said | May 17th 2012 @ 10:50am | Report comment
Tough gig for a new coach. Best of luck, Popa.
Some good names there.
Except for Strikers. Surely they won’t give the team the same name as a former NSL club and a current 20/20 team?
Does anyone know if they’re going to be labelled as West Sydney or just Sydney? West Sydney Wolves rolls off the tongue nicely, I reckon.
May 17th 2012 @ 11:02am
whiskeymac said | May 17th 2012 @ 11:02am | Report comment
good luck – very interesting to see who the players will be. Thwaite wont be one – off to Perth.
May 17th 2012 @ 11:07am
Nathan of Perth said | May 17th 2012 @ 11:07am | Report comment
Very glad we won that particularly signature hunt, expecting a very miserly Glory defence next season.
May 17th 2012 @ 12:48pm
The Cattery said | May 17th 2012 @ 12:48pm | Report comment
Precisely what the new club needs – big, big wraps on Poppa from all quarters, FFA chased him hard, it’s a big deal that he would coach a start up club rather than remain with Crystal Palace where he is forging a good reputation for himself, but the timing is probably spot on with him being a relatively young 38 years. He’ll have a one year honeymoon period to learn the caper, and then he’ll have to take a step up from there.
May 17th 2012 @ 1:01pm
JimmyMac said | May 17th 2012 @ 1:01pm | Report comment
Seems a good move.
If the club performs poorly &/or doesn’t get results immediately, appointing a local will likely mean the good will of the new fans will last way longer and the club will have a chance to grow itself and it’s success organically. Same applies with player signings, assistants etc, so be interesting to see what unfolds in those spaces.
Great chance also now for the golden generation of players to become the golden generation of coaches.
May 17th 2012 @ 2:23pm
Patrick Angel said | May 17th 2012 @ 2:23pm | Report comment
This is great news, now get me some names to print on the back of the jersey!