Improvement the Focus For Jim Van Weeren
Jim Van Weeren has led a multitude of young footballers through Sydney FC’s academy teams and on to professional careers and will continue to have this at the focus of his strategy for the 2022 National Premier Leagues NSW Men’s season.
“Like every year we have a pretty significant squad turnover,” Van Weeren explained.
“One of the consistent aims for us is to get players from our squad into our A-League team, that stays the same every year.
“We had a lot of boys that graduated from our team into my league and are now starting elite games.
“That’s always a real positive for us.”
With a squad full of some of the most talented youngsters in the state, their focus will be on working towards their goals of professional football while working on becoming a stronger team within the competition that can challenge the bigger and stronger clubs.
When reflecting on the 2021 season, Van Weeren explained that “in patches, we showed that we can really compete,” however the challenge was holding onto momentum and holding off the opposition for the entire 90 minutes
“For us as a collective group of players and staff we hope to see through more results than we did last season.
“We’ve got a lot of learning to do for when we play the bigger clubs and stronger teams but the real positive was that we showed at least in patches in almost every game that we were able to compete with the NPL1 competition.”
“We kind of believe that we have the best technical players and it’s about playing to those strengths.
“Obviously, 16, 17, 18 year old boys can’t compete physically with men so we really try to utilise the kind of technical skill set of the players and play in a certain way that helps us avoid physical duels and allow players to utilise their technical strength and weapons.”
With the significant squad turnover comes fresh talent and Van Weeren is particularly excited to see what his attacking unit can achieve this season.
“We’ve got a lot of boys that are on the fringe of the A-League, who play in our front four – exciting players, good in 1v1 situations and score some nice goals.
“We’re really looking forward to seeing not just the guys that we think are starting games at the moment, but the attacking unit to see what they can produce this year in the competition.”
