Being appointed Whittlesea Ranges coach is a dream come true for Safi Ayoush.
Having started coaching in the under-12s and working his way into the senior program, Ayoush was acting coach late in the National Premier League 3 season.
The club announced on Tuesday that Ayoush had been appointed coach for next season. Ayoush has been part of the club’s senior structure for five seasons.
“For me it’s a really good feeling,” he said.
“I’ve been here since coaching under-12s and up to the seniors. Many people would go to a different club for their coaching, but for me this is my club.
“For me I wanted to coach this club, it’s a dream come true.
“The club comes first for me and I want to help get my club back on track.”
Ayoush takes on the coaching role as the club faces an interesting time in its history. The club won just one match this year and is set to be relegated to the state league 1 north-west competition.
Ayoush said it was 100 per cent confirmed that they would be relegated as they waited for Football Victoria to make it official.
He said they would take a different approach to this season no matter what competition they are in
“We’ll work on our own development,” he said.
“We’ll do things differently this year compared to the last four to five years. We’ll look to work with our own juniors and the players we choose to bring in from the outside will be of a young age.
“We’ll look at the personal character of the player among other things. We want to bring in the right people.
“We’ll focus on our players and work with the coaching staff of the reserves and under-18s.”
Having been able to coach the side for several games this year, Ayoush has seen what the playing group can do.
He gave five or six teenagers debuts late and he said they were keen to see improvement from them as they take on a bigger role.
Ayoush said they are in state league 1, it’s not somewhere they want to stay for long.
“We want to start winning and get promoted back into the NPL,” he said.
“We want to give opportunities for the juniors to play seniors. We think we’ll be very competitive this year and we’ll still be training like an NPL team.
“We want to be back where we think we belong.”
Tara Murray
