This Saturday, the Sydney FC Academy will begin their 2025 campaign as the NSW NPL season gets underway.
Head Coach Jimmy van Weeren is back at the reigns once more and has assembled a squad very similar to last year with a few new faces added in the mix.
Ahead of Saturday night’s Macquarie Park clash against NWS Spirit, we sat down with the Head Coach to preview what is ahead for the Young Sky Blues who will once again be based out of Rockdale Ilinden Sports Centre.
“The general feeling is optimism and excitement for the group.
“I think that a lot of the group who was with us last year will be significantly better off from last year’s experience so I think optimism and excitement is the best definition for us at the moment
“There’s a real excitement for this season across all the all the age groups and pending who’s available each week, we should be competitive this year and I think that we can give some of the establishment clubs a good game weekend week out,” van Weeren said.
Last season, Sydney FC assembled one of the youngest Academy squads in NPL history and regularly put out a side with an average age of 17.
Despite the challenges that this brought last year, van Weeren believes that the learnings will be even more beneficial.
“We’ve retained a lot of the scholars who were already with us last year and now they will feature with us on a semi regular basis having been playing up in the A-League squad but that’s a week by week proposition.
“We’ve also had a combination of promoting some of our internal academy players and also adding in some external recruits.
“Last season was tough but the players always benefit from being challenged by men because ultimately when they play in the A-League they’re gonna be playing against men so even though some weeks it’s a very tough physical challenge, in the long run it is very valuable for their development,” he said.
We recently saw the departure of Hayden Matthews to Portsmouth in the English Championship and he was the latest from a number of Academy players to have made the jump overseas or the transition from Academy to first team.
And with these moves, comes the acknowledgement that the process of the Academy structure works and everyone reaps the rewards.
“On behalf of all the academy staff, there’s a real feeling of pride.
“A lot of the Academy staff put in many hours and a lot of commitment beyond what they contracted for and it’s really why we’re here and what we do it for.
“When you see now Jake [Girdwood-Reich] and Hayden [Matthews] move overseas but also other Academy graduates now playing big parts in the first team this season, it’s really the ultimate reward for a lot of the time and effort that the entire Academy staff both coaching staff and support staff have put into these players,” he said.
And now heading into the 2025 season, the goal remains the same for the Sky Blues.
“The goal is to develop as many as possible for our first team, however there’s also a little bit more of a feeling and belief that we should be more competitive in the league.
“It’s not what we set out to achieve but that can be a nice side benefit of focusing a lot on player development is that you get an overall improvement in the collective performance which would be really nice to see,” van Weeren concluded.
Sydney FC kick start their campaign on Saturday night at the Arctic Circle against NWS Spirit and you can catch all the action on NPL YouTube Channel.
View the game here.
Full Senior Squad
Nickolas ALFARO, Malik AMIN, Zinadein ARDIANSYAH, Max BERTOIA, Blake BOLWELL, Joseph CALUSIC, Justin CARDOZO, Junior CONDE, Jacob CREMEN-COWAN, Corey CRONIN, Zac DE JESUS, Taj DEMITO, Reef FARIAS, Marin FRANCE, Alen HARBAS, Zac HARRISON, Mason HARTNIG, Ashton HAWKETT, Taye HEDLEY, Gus HOEFSLOOT, Wataru KAMIJO, Will KENNEDY, Anthony KNOWLES, Joseph LACEY, Sam LANCASTER, Mathias MACALLISTER, Jay MALTZ, Cruz MARTINO, Zac MASCOLO, Noah MATHIE, Jacob MCLACHLAN, Jared MIDDLETON, Lachlan MIDDLETON, Jeremy MIFSUD, Ryan PARKES, Emilion PERALTA, Dylan ROSE, George RUSSELL, Jack RYU, Jet SANDERS, Marco SANTANGELO, Kyle SHAW, Munib SMAJIC, Eizar TANJUNG, Toby TINDALE, Rhys WEBSTER, Tyler WILLIAMS, Sandy ZAVERDINOS, Theo ZIMONOPOULOS
