Before Western United were crowned Isuzu UTE A-League champions for the first time, director of football Steve Horvat spoke to KEEPUP’s Sacha Pisani about building the club and the journey to glory.
As Drake put it, “started from the bottom, now we’re here”.
It’s an iconic verse that sums up the journey of Western United, who were crowned Isuzu UTE A-League champions for the first time.
Western dethroned Melbourne City 2-0 in their first Grand Final appearance at AAMI Park on Saturday night.
They became the first team since Brisbane Roar in 2011 to hoist the trophy aloft in their maiden Grand Final.
It’s reward for the hard work that has gone on behind the scenes at Western, but it’s only part of the wider picture at a club that insist their grand plans are on track.
Western director of football Steve Horvat, who doesn’t shy away from the fact they haven’t got everything right, sits down with KEEPUP to detail Western’s long road to glory.
‘No training grounds, no coach, no players’: Building a club from scratch
Rewind back to December 13, 2018. The Western Melbourne Group had beaten Sydney’s Southern Expansion and Melbourne’s Team 11 for an A-League Men license.
Western United’s promise to build a 15,000-seat privately-funded stadium in a key growth corridor in Melbourne’s west was instrumental in winning the licence from Football Australia.
After months and months of pitching, Western were the 11th team set to enter the A-League Men in 2019, before Macarthur FC the following season.
But that’s when the hard work began – Western had nothing, literally nothing. No training facilities, no coach or players and they had to be ready for the first day of training in mid-June. It wasn’t until February, 2019 that the club had their first board meeting.
Horvat and Western had to find a training ground, a coach and build a squad ready for their first pre-season game in August, and round one against Wellington Phoenix in October.
Mark Rudan was appointed inaugural head coach, while former Italy international Alessandro Diamanti, A-Leagues great Besart Berisha and ex-Greece international Panagiotis Kone were the headline arrivals.
“Ask my wife, she’ll probably give you a better answer than I can give you,” Horvat told KEEPUP about what it’s like to build a club from scratch.
“We had nothing. We had no training grounds, no coach, no players. Obviously there were different parts of the club that needed to be set up – we needed administration, staff. I just quickly went to work and purely focused on what we needed for the team to be up and running for training.
“My goal was to find a training venue, put a staff in place and be ready for training. If you think about what entails at A-League level, it’s enormous. The work we did as a team to make it happen, I look back and think it was quite remarkable.
“To think that first season we were one game away from playing in a Grand Final. We probably had our first board meeting late February because our chairman was away overseas. By the time we had to get everything together, we really began on the journey of: what’s our logo going to be, what are going to be called, what are our colours going to be etc.
“There’s no doubt we didn’t get everything right but what we wanted to do is make sure the playing group had every opportunity to produce results on the park. I know expansion teams in the past have really struggled with training facilities and the right resources to be competitive from day one. There are some exceptions like Western Sydney Wanderers.”
Before the completion of their landmark stadium and training facilities in Tarneit, Western desperately needed a training base.
They found one in Fraser Rise – City Vista Recreation Reserve. A $13million football base, the home of NPL hopefuls and Victorian state league outfit Caroline Springs George Cross, who had just made the switch from Sunshine which coincided with the former NSL club’s name change.
The venue, which consists of two synthetic fields and one grass pitch, was the scene of Western’s first ever match – a pre-season friendly against tenants George Cross on August 22, 2019.
Western are now based at ‘The Hangar’ in Tullamarine – they share the high-performance facilities of AFL club Essendon Bombers. Though, they still have ties to City Vista, where their academy and women’s teams play home games.
“That was as good or if not better than half of the A-League teams were training at during that time,” Horvat said of City Vista Recreation Reserve.
“We knew if we wanted to entice the likes of Alessandro Diamanti. You can talk about all the other things but their place of work is really important. They need to have the facilities, the right recovery, the right medical setup. The pitch needed to be excellent conditions.
“We had a partner in Caroline Springs George cross who were willing to work with us because the facility was just being built. We were able to move some parts of the facilities that would be suitable for NPL to A-League standard. When the players came in for their first day of orientation the week before the first day of training, everybody was blown away by the facility we were able to train at from day one.
“It set a standard for what we want to be as a football club. We are building and on a journey to something far greater that nobody will have in this country. Until we get there, we wanted to make sure the players were given every opportunity to perform at their best.”
‘Game-changing’ long-term vision
Western are one win away from being crowned Australian champions, but they have been the subject of criticism.
The number one reason has centred on the stadium, or lack thereof. Construction has started on a new elite training facility in Tarneit that will be ready in May next year. It will be home of Western and comprise of three full sized pitches, including one with a 5,000-spectator capacity.
But the stadium remains some way off at the conclusion of Western’s third campaign. Horvat acknowledges the “backlash”, with chairman Jason Sourasis previously admitting the club were “naive” to declare they would be able to build a new stadium within two years of their inception.
It’s all part of Western’s big dream, which is continually becoming reality. Already boasting an academy, next season will see Western compete in the Liberty A-League.
“The wins and losses pale in significance when you look at the bigger picture. When we implement the bigger picture, then it becomes a real game changer,” Horvat said.
“I know the club have received a lot of backlash as to why the stadium isn’t built yet,” he said. “But we’re talking about a project that’s never been attempted in this country by a private group. It’s done all the time in MLS and that’s really the model we worked from.
“… For me it’s always been about pathways and opportunities for kids, and this is going to be a football precinct unlike any other in this country. Something that every boy and girl, now we’ve partnered with Calder United and an A-League Women’s license coming online, they can all aspire to.
“This could be the pinnacle of where they play football and feel a sense of belonging. This is going to be more than a football club, a community town centre where sport is the common catalyst that brings everyone together. Everybody should be excited.
“We’ve turned soil on the training component part of that, which will be ready before the Women’s World Cup. We hope to turn soil soon on the stadium.
“It’s taken it’s time but a $130million stadium doesn’t get built overnight and exacerbated by the COVID issues over the last couple of years, I still think the team working on that side of the business is doing a remarkable job.”
Horvat added: “We are trying to balance that with trying to build a connection piece in the west of Melbourne that all of Western Victoria will be proud of.
“Fans get excited by playing in games like the weekend. As a board and as a club we have ambition to be challenging for trophies and we make no mistake about that. The next evolution of our club now is our academy coming online.
“You’ve seen with some of players that have come through – Jerry Skotadis has come through, played in the finals series and hasn’t missed a beat. Kids like Adisu Bayew, even Dylan Pierias, Rhys Bozinovski – an 18-year-old comes on in a semi-final. That’s where we want to get to, where we have players who’ve grown up in the west, young players that get to taste this level of football.
“We want to create the footballer at this club that is ready, so that when they’re playing in our A-League team they’re ready, if an opportunity arises that they can be sold overseas, they’re ready and not be back in 12 months not disillusioned.
“With our partnership with Calder United and now being awarded an A-League Women license, there is a pathway for every girl from the age of six to play MiniRoos, to play via Calder, to play NPL and to play in our A-league team.
“Next year when our junior NPL comes online, we will be able to offer that pathway for kids in the west. It’s really important. I know the football department is working fine. I’m happy now to work on the next phase which is our academy. I think it will be the lasting legacy we give to the region.”
Appointing Aloisi and learning from the past
On the pitch, John Aloisi is at the forefront of Western’s success.
A maligned figure among some fans in the Isuzu UTE A-League, the former Melbourne City and Brisbane Roar head coach was chosen as the man to replace Rudan ahead of the 2021-22 season.
It’s been a season of redemption for Aloisi, who had spent three years without coaching before Western turned to the Socceroos legend.
He is now an A-League Men Championship-winning head coach, having defied the odds throughout the season.
For Horvat, who admits Western were very time poor in their selection process around Rudan in year one, standout candidate Aloisi wasn’t content on living off his iconic penalty that sent Australia to the 2006 World Cup.
“We ran a really thorough process,” said Horvat. “We started with a list of 25 coaches from all over the world. Some names that haven’t been mentioned in the media that were quite staggering.
“We weren’t going to hire somebody who didn’t align with our values and what our culture wanted to be. We had in-depth meetings with eight candidates. We got down to four and then we did follow-ups and two rounds of follow ups.
“It was around John’s hunger to be successful. I and we as a group who were on the panel could see this wasn’t a guy that just wanted to rest on having his penalty flashed around every five minutes. He was actually dedicated in the work that needed to be done.
“We did extensive due diligence and talked to a lot of people about the last four candidates and the thing that struck out to me, this is a guy who was going to be first in the office and last our everyday. He was going to lead the group via his work ethic. The easy thing to do if you’re John Aloisi is not put the work in and rest on your laurels and rest on your name in the game. That’s not the case at all.
“He gave extensive feedback on our squad and what he wanted to do. To be fair, this game and the people around this game have a great tendency to be negative. People overlook, he did a really good job at Brisbane Roar in really trying circumstances off the park.
“We know the more experiences the coach has, the better he gets. As soon as he came into town, I knew that he’d learnt a lot from his past experiences.”
‘I would’ve said you’re crazy’: Western’s turnaround
Last season, Western endured a forgettable campaign. Having come within a whisker of the Grand Final in their debut season in 2019-20, they finished third from bottom the following term.
But with Aloisi at the helm, Western have gone from 10th in the standings and missing finals, to champions within 12 months.
“No doubt if someone was to say to me at the end of last season we would be playing in a Grand Final, I would’ve said you’re crazy but it’s exciting,” Horvat said.
Aloisi has overhauled Western, bringing in experienced quartet Jamie Young, Aleksandar Prijovic, Leo Lacroix, Rene Krhin.
Western have kept 12 clean sheets this season – the most of any team in the competition and six more than City. In fact, the last time any team kept more in a single campaign was in 2018-19 when Perth Glory kept 13 clean sheets.
“We’ve seen this season the dramatic turnaround, but we did the work. The staff, the incredible football department at the club, the coaches came in and did the work, the players have bought in,” Horvat added.
“Training has been incredible this season. The intensity, the willingness to work under any sort of adversity has been nothing short of remarkable.”
