At just 22, Mathieu Cordier has won an NYL Championship with the Western Sydney Wanderers, tasted A-League football with three appearances for the Red & Black and represented his country in the Australian U20s squad.
While his experience, especially at his age, is quite impressive, the humble youngster is enjoying a new challenge in the NPL NSW Men’s competition in 2021.
“It’s been a pretty, pretty exciting season,” he explained.
“There have been lots of big games and with APIA specifically we’ve had like a good Cup run, tough games in that, and we’re already looking forward to this back end of the season where the games are coming very thick and fast… it’s an exciting time.
“I’ve been playing a few positions, you know, my normal position, and then I’ve been playing higher up as well on the wing, which I’ve really enjoyed.
“We just play and play like a really fun style, which I’ve been enjoying creating lots of chances and yeah, definitely, definitely been enjoying it wherever I’ve been playing.”
As for the lockdown break, Cordier explained that the communication between the close-knit APIA team is as strong as usual.
“If we’re not seeing each other as regularly as we normally would, it doesn’t kind of feel that way because we’re always speaking to each other.
“There’s always something going on that we’re talking about, so it doesn’t feel like we’ve just been like, cut off and we’re not like a team anymore.
“We’re still interacting and communicating, and I think it’s good to keep it that way.”
Having been in professional football environments for the past few years, Cordier praised APIA for doing as much as they can to have a professional environment in the semi-professional competition.
“There’s a couple of differences, but it’s pretty similar.”
“Training, it’s competitive, which is really good… it’s not that much lighter.
“At APIA I think they’re doing as much as they possibly can.
“We’ve got our own S&C [Strength & Conditioning] this year and we’ve got like our GPS tracking, which we’ve got for the end of the season.
“There’s obviously going to be a few differences because the A-League is a professional league, but as the NPL is semi-professional, but I think at the end of the day, the main difference will come down to like the players’ attitudes and the coaches’ attitudes, and we try and make sure that those are a high standard.”
With ambitious goals for the remainder of the season, APIA will be hitting the ground running when football resumes.
“We’ve been pretty clear we want to make we want to make it into the top three by the end of the NPL season and then go as far as we possibly can when the Waratah Cup goes as far as we can the FAA Cup when that is possible.
“For me personally, I was just really excited to get a consistent run of games because the last few years, it’s been pretty on and off for me.
Trying to make sure that I’m performing well, every game, focusing on all aspects of my game, making sure that I’m improving every week.”
-By Madeline Riley