Aloisi seeking to "make the most" of Western's youthful form
After back-to-back wins and with a visit from ALM cellar-dwellers Brisbane looming, John Aloisi is seeking to harness the rising confidence of his young side to propel them further up the table.
In football, youthful exuberance often finds itself placed in a paradoxical existence. Certainly, it’s something that pretty much every side wants to have, riding the wave of ebullience and excitement it brings but it’s also something often seen as needing temperance, its excesses contained by a steady voice from the dugout and a cadre of veterans perceived as possessing higher baselines. The inevitable challenge is finding the right balance within your own, unique circumstances and having vaulted into the A-League Men’s top six off the back of one of the league’s youngest sides, Western United coach John Aloisi has seen anything that would encourage him to rein his young chargers in ahead of Brisbane Roar’s visit to Ironbark Fields this weekend.
After going winless across the opening month of the 2024-25 campaign, United has found a level of form in recent times, winning three of their last five games, contrasted with just a single defeat, and going into Christmas off the back of back-to-back of not only becoming the first side to defeat Auckland FC but by doing so in comprehensive fashion: marching into Mt Smart stadium and clinically counter-punching their way to a 4-0 win. That triumph, combined with their 4-3 win at Sydney FC the week prior, vaulted the side from Melbourne’s west into a playoff place for the first time all season, with a chance to move into fourth if results go their way in coming days.
The youth movement that took over the side last season now well and truly ensconced in Tarneit heading into 2025, Aloisi fielded the third-youngest side in the competition when weighting by minutes played against Auckland, his starting XI featuring four players who spent time in its burgeoning academy before advancing into the senior team, with another three graduates of Anthony Frost’s program joining them off the bench. When Noah Botić and Michael Ruhs are also accounted for — after goals in back-to-back games, Botić is now on seven-goal involvements for the season, equal second in the league — it means that nine of the 16 players who knocked off the league leaders on their turf were aged 23 and under. Just two, in contrast, were over 26.
“It’s not really [about] reining them in,” Aloisi said of his young side. “You'll see if they are getting a little bit carried away, or the way they train, but they've been training really well. They've got confidence you can really sense that and you want to make the most out of that.
“The most important thing is still playing our game. We went to Auckland and still tried to play our game. We know that Auckland were a good team, or are a good team, and had been getting great results, especially over there, but the focus was more on us. It's the same with Brisbane. The focus is on our game against Brisbane because we know they have good players, they can actually hurt you. But if we play our game, we're confident we'll get the result; so that's the main focus.
“And with the number of games coming up [the Roar fixture will kickstart a run of four games in ten days for United], the younger players, they do seem to recover better and quicker than some of the older players. So I'm sure they'll find this period okay and we'll get through it with no problem.”
Of course, the emergence of young players, while always welcome, does come with its own set of challenges and headaches for coaches. Preeminent amongst these for Aloisi is what he’s going to do at left-back in the weeks ahead, with the coach indicating on Friday that Ben Garuccio was nearing a return from a calf injury, with some role against Brisbane not out of the question.
Named skipper of United this season, Garuccio has been restricted to just two appearances thus far in 2024-25 due to his troublesome calf – Aloisi flagging that his return would need to be managed during a busy stretch – with 20-year-old Iraq youth international Charbel Shamoon taking the field in his absence. And the youngster hasn’t exactly shrunk from the task, either, starting in both the wins over Sydney and Auckland.
“We will play who we believe is going to help us win the game,” said Aloisi. “If that's Charbel Shamoon, if that's Ben Garuccio. Look, Ben Garuccio is our captain, and we know how good he is and how good he will be for us this season.”
On the subject of winning games, whereas United triumphed as underdogs against Sydney and Auckland, this Sunday’s meeting with Brisbane will see them assume the mantle of favouritism; Ruben Zadkovich possibly coaching for his job in the coming weeks as the Roar, still winless after eight games, faces United, Central Coast, Newcastle, and Melbourne City across a 13-day stretch.
A combination of home-field advantage and lesser-heralded opposition means that United likely won’t be afforded the chance to sit back and serve as the more reactive side as they did in their more recent wins – they ended with 40% of possession against Auckland and 36% of the ball against Sydney – and instead will be tasked with taking on the game and breaking down the Roar, who are only one of two sides, the other being Perth Glory, to average less of the ball per game than Aloisi’s unit so far this season.
“Against Perth Glory, when we won 3-1, we had the majority of the ball that game [68%] and we dealt with it well,” said the United boss. “The way that we've set up is we can be just as effective without the ball as we are with the ball. If we need to keep hold of the ball and try and break a team down, we believe we can with the players we have. And if a team wants to press us, we can quickly play through lines and get down the other end pretty quickly. Auckland and Sydney FC playing at home, you expect them to press you more often than not, and we're able to outplay that.
“We're comfortable with whatever game Brisbane is going to bring us, whether they want us to have the ball more or not. But we know we have to be just as good with as we are without the ball to create chances and make that they don't get as many chances.
“Every game is different. No matter who you're playing, whether it's a team that you're not expected to beat, they'll give you issues, and then the team that is not doing that well on the table, they'll give you different issues, and they'll play a different way.
“Our focus isn't on that we're expected to win. Our focus is on performing well and I've said from the start of the season that I just want good performances. Because normally, those performances will turn into wins. And now they are starting to turn into what we deserve.”
Header Image: Western United