Badolato believes in Wanderers survival

This week, we spoke to 18-year-old midfield sensation Nicholas Badolato on the Western Sydney Wanderers’ start to the season, making the move to the National Premier Leagues NSW Men’s squad and his goals for the future.

Badolato has been a strong, consistent performer for the Wanderers in what has been a tricky start to their NPL Men’s NSW campaign, providing a mixture of tenacity and technique in midfield.

“I’ve been really fortunate to be given an opportunity and it’s something that I’ve worked really hard for,” he said on becoming a mainstay in the Wanderers’ NPL side.

“I would say that I have a lot of great support from the coaches around me, whether it’s in the NPL or A-League space who are constantly trying to help me.

“Also, my family have played a big part in helping me adapt, my older brother Alex who is now at Victory played in the NPL for a while so he has been helping me and mentoring me a lot.”

The Wanderers have begun 2025 in a difficult manner, currently sitting joint-bottom on the NPL Men’s NSW ladder.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom for the academy side, as Badolato believes they have been showing signs of good football, but just need to translate that into their results.

“I think this season has been a great experience for a lot of our players including myself,” he said.

“I think we’ve been playing some really good football which is something that we want to do every single game.

“But obviously we’re desperate to start putting those good performances into wins.

“I think we need to try and maintain those periods of domination for a lot longer than we have shown.

“This is something that we speak about a lot and are working towards.”

Badolato believes that, by implementing these things, the Wanderers can still push for finals this campaign – something not out of the realms of possibility, with the congested table seeing Wanderers just nine points off the top six despite a tough start.

“Our goal is to finish as high as we can,” said Badolato.

“We still believe that we can make a finals spot due to the quality of football we’ve produced.

“We understand that we need to start turning those performances into wins and that’s what we plan to do.”

Meanwhile, when asked about his personal goals, the exciting midfielder remained humble, saying “my goal for the rest of the season is to maintain this spot in the NPL team and help the team get into the finals.

“My dream, of course, is to make my debut for the first team, and hopefully one day play for the national team.”

Badolato will be in action on Saturday afternoon as the Wanderers take on Manly United in an important clash at Wanderers Football Park, with the game also available live on the Football NSW YouTube channel.