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2016 National Premier Leagues (NPL) Season


Murfy1
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City commences 2016 National Premier Leagues (NPL) Season

 

25 February 2016

 

Melbourne City FC commenced its PlayStation 4 2016 National Premier Leagues 2 West campaign in style on Saturday night with a comprehensive 4-0 win over Bendigo City.

Goals to Phil Petreski, Stefan Zinni, Jordan Hall and Giuseppe Marafioti secured a convincing first round away win at Epsom Huntly Reserve in Bendigo, with City and Moreland Zebras the only two clubs to register opening day wins in the NPL 2 West competition.

The Club’s under-20s team also enjoyed the perfect start to its title defence running out 2-1 winners against Bendigo City.

The Club’s 23-man senior NPL squad contains three players with Hyundai A-League experience in Ali Eyigun, Stefan Zinni and Steve Kuzmanovski, while youth team regulars Philip Petreski and Yaren Sozer both featured in the Club’s pre-season friendly against Manchester  City in July 2015.

Foxtel National Youth League title-winning Head Coach Joe Palatsides, who has been with the Club for four consecutive seasons, will oversee the operations of both teams as the Club’s Head of Academy Coaching.

Palatsides also assumes the role of Head Coach of the NPL seniors alongside Assistant Coach Lachlan Armstrong.

Proven youth and Westfield W-League Championship winning coach Joe Montemurro and Hyundai A League Assistant Coach Ivan Jolic will co-coach the under-20s, who will aim to defend their title after being crowned champions in a dominant NPL 2 campaign last season.

Sam Frangos will continue in his role as the Goalkeeping Coach for both squads.

In an exciting development, both teams will continue to train at Melbourne City FC’s Academy Pitches, which are considered Hyundai A-League standard training pitches, located at the City Football Academy, Melbourne and will, for the first time, play home matches on the Academy Pitches.

Melbourne City FC is competing in the West conference, with Victoria’s second division split across East and West, holding 10 teams in each conference.

The Club is to announce an exciting major sponsor for the NPL teams soon.

 

Melbourne City FC NPL Senior Squad (23 players): Yaren Sozer (GK), Jack West-Astuti (GK), Bradley Clarke, Phil Petreski, Luke Gallo, Tomislav Fadljevic, Leo Athanasiou, Stefan Zinni, Ali Eyigun, Yusuf Ahmed, Jordon Hall, Mehdi Sarwari, Bailey Row, Denis Genreau, Marcus Dimanche, Nicolas Gonzalez, Giuseppe Marafioti, Austin Wong, William Nuttall, Thomas Barforosh, Steve Kuzmanovski, Christopher Cristaldo, Connor Metcalfe

Melbourne City FC NPL under-20 Squad (20 players): James Delianov (GK), Rory Curran (GK), Gerrie Sylaidos, Stefan Colakovski, Dylan Pierias, Mersim Memeti, Mitchell Trajcevski, Nathaniel Atkinson, Kobe Timms, Michael Yoseski, Alex Petropoulos, Steven Lechowicz, Liam Ward, Nicholas Dib, Zac Bates, Julian Zinni, Sebastin Kis, Anthony Theodoropoulos, Otman Benhaddou, Lucas Portelli

 

http://www.melbournecityfc.com.au/article/city-commences-2016-national-premier-leagues-npl-season/18g185nq4lofi16f9ln0i8msn4

Edited by jw1739
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So it does look as though the NPL cannot be used  to bring A-League squad players back from injury or otherwise give them some playing time unless they are nominated in the NPL squad. I can't believe that that's what FFA intended when it slashed the NYL in half.

Also, a question -  our A-League squad players nominated (Kuzmanovski, Dekker) are 19 and 21 respectively - is there an age limit on our NPL squad?

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Melbourne City’s National Premier Leagues side continued their unbeaten start to the season on Saturday defeating a strong Moreland Zebras outfit 3-0 and CFA’s Academy Pitches. Joe Palatsides’ chargers made light work of the high-flying Zebras with Phil Petreski finding the back of the net from a set piece in the first half before two goals after the break from Bradley Clarke and Chris Cristaldo secured the three points.

Moreland began the better of the two sides with a free-kick into the side netting and a brilliant one-on-one save from Yaren Sozer denying the Zebras after 15 minutes.

 

City began to turn the pendulum of power their way and Yusuf Ahmed’s header from a Petreski cross kissed the top of the crossbar as the home side awoke from its slumber. After a period of sustained dominance, City found the breakthrough through Petreski, who saw his curling effort find the bottom corner, giving his side the lead in the 34th minute.

 

Palatsides’ side continued their dominance after the break as a sharp counter attack saw Stefan Zinni slam the upright from close range, delivering an early warning sign that there was more to come from City. Steve Kuzmanovski had the first chance to double his side’s lead from the spot however the striker saw his effort saved and follow up trickle wide but it was only a matter of time before Clarke would find the elusive goal.

 

After a sustained period of possession, the young full-back drove through the Zebras’ midfield, playing an excellent one-two with Cristaldo and calmly slotting past the onrushing keeper to find his side’s second of the afternoon. City then sealed the result in the last minute as a delightful pass across the penalty area from Giuseppe Marafioti met the sliding Cristaldo to cap off a dominant performance that sees City sit outright top in NPL2 West after St Albans’ loss to Moreland City on Sunday.

 

Our next match is in two weeks with a break for the fouth round of the FFA Cup as we take on NPL2 East's Kingston City at CFA's Academy Pitches on Saturday 26 March. U20's 12:45pm, Seniors 3pm.

 

Match Details

Melbourne City 3 (Pretreski 38', Clarke 59', Cristaldo 90+2')

Moreland Zebras 0

 

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Just watched the Murray United v MCFC game highlights on YouTube. Terrible defending by both teams but the statuesque defending by our team is what concerns me. We were down 2-0 before we even started playing. Poor positioning and not tracking players for the first goal and a sprung off-side trap for the second.

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7 hours ago, n i k o said:

Under 20s won 11-0. Seniors won 3-1. I only watched the seniors, it wasn't a great performance but did get better in the second half. 

Moreland only had 2 on the bench for the U/20's which didn't help, plus they're bottom of the ladder haha. Stefan Zinni's younger brother scored at least 3

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1 minute ago, wfc_10 said:

Moreland only had 2 on the bench for the U/20's which didn't help, plus they're bottom of the ladder haha. Stefan Zinni's younger brother scored at least 3

Yeah ok fair enough. During the senior game their keeper went down and I heard them discussing whether they could bring in the under 20's keeper. So I don't know what's going on with them and their depth on the bench. 

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7 minutes ago, n i k o said:

Yeah ok fair enough. During the senior game their keeper went down and I heard them discussing whether they could bring in the under 20's keeper. So I don't know what's going on with them and their depth on the bench. 

Was also Phil Petreski's last game for City too I think

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2 hours ago, wfc_10 said:

Was also Phil Petreski's last game for City too I think

How he never got a senior game in all these years despite us seemingly never actually having any fullbacks in the senior team, constantly relying on converted wingers, midfielders, or centre backs, I don't understand. We even tried about 10 other youth team fullbacks in that time (walker, mitchinson, millar, etc).

Edited by Tesla
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6 hours ago, Tesla said:

How he never got a senior game in all these years despite us seemingly never actually having any fullbacks in the senior team, constantly relying on converted wingers, midfielders, or centre backs, I don't understand. We even tried about 10 other youth team fullbacks in that time (walker, mitchinson, millar, etc).

Agree that it is strange. He was good enough to play for the team for many years, good enough to captain the team but apparently not good enough for the senior team. I don't blame him for trying to progress his career elsewhere

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10 hours ago, belaguttman said:

Agree that it is strange. He was good enough to play for the team for many years, good enough to captain the team but apparently not good enough for the senior team. I don't blame him for trying to progress his career elsewhere

The real strange thing was that whilst he couldn't get a senior game, Macedonia would fly him across the world to play in their U23s (& beat Australia).

FiIKWGO.

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On 5/14/2016 at 2:59 AM, Tesla said:

How he never got a senior game in all these years despite us seemingly never actually having any fullbacks in the senior team, constantly relying on converted wingers, midfielders, or centre backs, I don't understand. We even tried about 10 other youth team fullbacks in that time (walker, mitchinson, millar, etc).

18 hours ago, wfc_10 said:

He's signed for Heidelberg

Clearly knows his Greek Macedonian History doesn't he Tes... is he still one of your favourites?

 

Edited by cadete
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1 hour ago, Thrillhouse said:

seems like another loss today, doesn't look like the club has posted anything about the result or any live updates

Were 0-1 down when I left (around 80th min) second week in a row the team's left back has been sent off for two bookable offences.

Team had some half chances but fairly insipid. They lack an out and out no 9. Zinni was patchy and fairly unimaginative for a bloke whose played in the a league.

Under 20s got up 3-2 after trailing 1-2.

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2 minutes ago, wfc_10 said:

Think we can just about rule out our chances of promotion to the NPL next season, lost 3-1 to St Albans today. Starting lineup had Arzani, Kuzi and Tongyik all playing. Pretty sure we've now slipped down to 5th place in the NPL2 West

Its like season 2 as Melbourne Heart in the aleague

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3 hours ago, Chris p said:

results are irrelevant for a young team, How was the performance ?

That's a myth.

Results are everything and learning a developing a winning mentality is fundamental. These are not 14 year olds learning the game. These kids are 10 to 20 games away from senior contracts. 

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1 hour ago, Jovan said:

That's a myth.

Results are everything and learning a developing a winning mentality is fundamental. These are not 14 year olds learning the game. These kids are 10 to 20 games away from senior contracts. 

Thank you Jovan. Fucking joke if you don't think results and winning isn't the main priority from 16 onwards. 

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The penalties imposed upon Melbourne Victory by the independent tribunal are as follows:



Melbourne Victory take all reasonable steps to identify all the wrongdoers at the fixture and bring them to justice both before the Grievance and Disciplinary Tribunal and also Victoria Police.


That 6 championship points be deducted from the Melbourne Victory team and furthermore, there be a further 6 points deducted, such deduction to be suspended for 12 months from the date of this decision. The 6 penalty points the subject of suspension shall become actual points deducted from Melbourne Victory should it commit the same offence.

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13 hours ago, n i k o said:

Its like season 2 as Melbourne Heart in the aleague

Yep. One day our club will learn not to talk up its chances of winning a league until it's actually happened. Too often we talk everything up only to fall over in spectacular fashion.

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