With very little to almost no experience as senior coach, the Australian A-League club appointed Robbie Fowler as a coach to their team. Even though Fowler has been involved for a large part of his career either playing or at Liverpool’s academy, his coaching career was limited to a short stint at the Thai club, Muangthong United. Kicking off at their season opener soon, the team is, however, showing promise of an excellent performance both against Adelaide in their opener as well as for the entire season. This hope is based on their success in the pre-season victory of the Surf City Cup.
At the end of the previous season, the Brisbane Roars was ranked at number nine with only Central Coast Mariners performing worse than them. This year they are already showing promise in their attack strategies and all over style on the field. Fowler expressed his excitement when the team managed to snatch the Surf City Cup from the Newcastle Jets and Perth Glory, stating that he believes that they have sorted out many concerns that were present within the team and they only need a few more tweaks to achieve great success.
He also expressed his trust in the team’s capability and stated that their character is brilliant and combined with the skill of the players, they can manage to get to the top this season. After a short stint at both Perth Glory and North Queensland Fury, Fowler does have an excellent knowledge of the league. Therefore he stated that he is a reliable and useful option to lead the team to victory upon his appointment as head coach to the Roars. The Brit also has many other players from his home country in his squad. Both Macaulay Gillepshey previously from Carlisle and Jay O’Shea, the midfielder form Birmingham City is on his team.
New Faces in Management
The A-league made some shuffles, and many new faces are in coaching positions in the league. Except for Fowler, the Dutchman Gertjan Verbeek brought his rich history of experience to Adelaide. While Melbourne City is under the reigns of Frenchman Erick Mombaerts and Adelaide coach Marco Kurtz left them for Melbourne Victory, their cross-city rivals.
This season’s opening games are all about to kick off soon, and fans will see many forces meeting each other on the field once such clash will take place when the two clubs from Melbourne take each other on. Another will take place when the Mariners and Western Sydney Wanderers go up against each other and New Zealand Wellington Phoenix takes on the newly added Western United. This year there are a total of 11 clubs competing with bids going on for the twelfth club which will be included in the league from next year onwards. These additions are made to expand the league’s size.