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Player losses give us Heart

Matt Windley

Herald Sun

July 19, 201211:00PM

MELBOURNE Heart says fans should not despair as the club's crop of young stars continue to be plucked by bigger clubs on the world stage.

Eli Babalj (Red Star Belgrade) and Brendan Hamill (Seongnam) have recently signed deals to play elsewhere, while Curtis Good is still on the radar of English Premier League club Newcastle and Aziz Behich has also been linked to a European move.

While replacements have to be found for those who leave, Heart's football operations manager John Didulica said the departures should be viewed as positive for the club.

"We pride ourselves on player preparation, the way we train our boys," Didulica said.

"And it's working, because not only are these guys doing well in the A-League - we made the finals comfortably last year - we're taking guys from nowhere to, within two years, having the best clubs in Europe and Asia wanting them.

"So I think we're doing a lot right in that regard. The price you pay, if you can call it a price, is that you lose them to larger clubs globally, but we back ourselves in to find the next batch and do the same thing again."

Heart has also bolstered its 2012-13 playing stocks signing of former Dinamo Zagreb striker Josip Tadic, Liberian international Patrick Gerhardt, defender Steven Gray, Young Socceroo Golgol Mebrahtu and goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne.

Didulica said he was "really comfortable" with the way the playing list was coming together for the club's third season. "We just need a couple more players."

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/soccer/player-losses-give-us-heart/story-fndcvh7n-1226430443791

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If we can sell players for $500,000+, wait two years and get them back on a free to play out the last six years or so of their carrers, we will be doing alright.

The sad fact is once players leave the a league they rarely return back to the club they left.

Dario went from bris to Adelaide

Nicky Carl from Newcastle to Sydney

Beach from ccm to heart

Williams from bris to fury

The list goes on. There is no guarantee they will return to us.

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out of the babalj, good, hamill and behich, i can only see Hamill not coming back to heart if he returns to the a-league. Good and behich are melbourne boys, so obviously their preference would be to come back to melbourne, while babalj was quoted as saying he can't see himself playing for any other a-league team than heart when he comes back, and i'm fairly confident we'll see him in heart colours again sometime in his career. Hamill is from sydney iirc, so it wouldn't be surprising if he moved there, but you'd think that his preference would also be heart given his connection with the club and the fact we gave him the opportunity to move onto bigger things

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out of the babalj, good, hamill and behich, i can only see Hamill not coming back to heart if he returns to the a-league. Good and behich are melbourne boys, so obviously their preference would be to come back to melbourne, while babalj was quoted as saying he can't see himself playing for any other a-league team than heart when he comes back, and i'm fairly confident we'll see him in heart colours again sometime in his career. Hamill is from sydney iirc, so it wouldn't be surprising if he moved there, but you'd think that his preference would also be heart given his connection with the club and the fact we gave him the opportunity to move onto bigger things

This strong guess work means I will sleep easier now. <_<

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Rumour has it that we have signed David Vrankovic from Bonnyrigg White Eagles. 18y.o centre back who's form has helped them move 7 points clear at the top of the NSWPL. Recently been called up to the Young Socceroos squad.

Where did you hear that? Never seen him play, and would always rather Melbourne boys, but I'll have to trust JD's judgement.

Sounds like a similar story to Kristian K, but the club seem to have let him go, he hasn't been involved this pre-season from what I can recall.

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Where did you hear that? Never seen him play, and would always rather Melbourne boys, but I'll have to trust JD's judgement.

Sounds like a similar story to Kristian K, but the club seem to have let him go, he hasn't been involved this pre-season from what I can recall.

If we had only focused on signing Melbourne kids then we would never of signed Eli from the West.

I have seen two games of NSWPL this year and TBH was impressed by the standard compared to VPL.

(Of course I realise this is not any real test at all in the league's quality.)

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Asked if we may see him wear Australian colours at the 2018 Moscow World Cup, his response was low-key. "'It'd be great," he said. "I'll be at my best and strongest."

LOL ffs.

On a positive note, went to westfield sports high. A lot of talent has come through there.

This will be his 3rd A-League club at only 18 years old though, not sure about that. Might just be lack of opportunity at the others.

Edited by Tesla
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