Melbourne Knights are proud to announce that the club has agreed to terms with former men’s U20s coach and senior men’s assistant coach Micky Colina to take the reigns for the 2019 NPL Season as head coach of the senior squad.
After retiring from playing Victorian Premier League, Colina rose to Victoria’s highest tier from the humblest of places. After beginning his journey with amateur club HNK Gospic Bears as a player/coach for 3 years, Colina realised his coaching strengths and moved forward onto Melbourne Knights – where he spent a year as the U21s coach. From here Colina moved into a head coaching role at St Alban’s Saints for two years in the State League 1 competition. Wanting to raise the bar again, in 2014 Colina took the position of U20s coach at Richmond SC – followed by what was probably his defining years with North Geelong, in which he turned around a team in danger of potential relegation the year prior, into a promotion winning Warrior’s side.
After spending a large portion of the 2018 season under Aljosa Asanovic and Dean Racunica, Colina says he is excited to take on the role after a year with the seasoned professionals:
“Obviously working under Aljosa and Dean was a refreshing and vibrant experience, although it was tough at times to meet their demands – as they are used to a fully professional environment, I think the squad did tremendously well to step up to the mark” said Colina.
Aljosa Asanovic announced his departure from the club in recent weeks; returning to Croatia briefly before joining his old teammate and close friend Slaven Bilic to assist him with coaching Saudi Arabian club Al Ittihad.
“It’s a pretty surreal experience to work under two guys who were such great players – especially in the beginning. They think differently from others…” – said Colina.
After guiding the U20s men’s team to a respectable third place on the 2018 U20s table, Colina feels as though he has been around football for long enough to know when a side is ready to take it to the next level, and he’s excited for the new signings to come, along with being able to continue to bring talented youth through the ranks during the 2019 season:
“These boys (U20s) worked extremely hard during 2018, and ended up in a decent position by years’ end. What I’m really looking forward to is continuing this club’s great record of youth promotion through to the senior squad. Having involvement in both teams last year enabled me to see who’s ready to make the step up.” said Colina.
He then went on to talk about plans for the new year, and some new signings to be announced in the coming weeks:
“We’ve also got some exciting signings to announce in the coming weeks, who will be involved from the very beginning of pre-season. I’m hoping that the senior squad can share some of the wisdom they learnt this year with them; in order to get some real cohesion going into 2019”
Melbourne Knights are proud to welcome Micky into his new role at the club, along with club legend Steve Gojevic as his assistant and newcomer Jose Mansila joins in the role of physiotherapist, we wish them and the squad all the very best going into 2019.
The club would also like to remind ALL members that the Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday the 15th of November in the Melbourne Croatia Soccer Club at 7pm. We encourage all our members to attend this event to hear about the season gone past, as well as the steps being taken to continue strongly into 2019.