Last season Scott Neville was so confident in Perth Glory’s potential after the announcement of coach Tony Popovic he moved his wedding so it didn’t clash with the date of the grand final.
The decision paid off as Glory embarked on a stellar campaign that resulted in their first premiership, despite ending in a disappointing grand final loss to Sydney FC.
While Neville may have been satisfied with his premonition and happy to prepare for another tilt at A-League and Asians Champions League title glory with Perth, a call from a former teammate ignited the same confidence he’d felt a year previously.
“I received a call from Robbie Fowler, and I knew straight away I wanted to be a part of his plans at the Roar,” he said.
“I’d say that Robbie’s appointment was the main reason I decided to come over to Brisbane.
“Not only is he a legend of Liverpool, he’s a legend of the game and it’s really exciting to be a part of this team playing such physical, exciting and attacking football.”
After some encouraging results in pre-season, such as knocking out last year’s champions Sydney FC in the FFA Cup, is Neville as confident the team Fowler assembled have what it takes to emulate Perth’s surprise success last year?
“Definitely, it was good to win the premiership with Perth last season and it’s a similar feeling this season this year starting out with the Roar,” he said.
“We’ve obviously got a lot of new boys in the squad, mostly from the UK, who aren’t as used to the long off-season that we have in Australia but I think that’s really given us a great opportunity to start to put together the style of football we want to play.
“They’re used to very physical football over in England which I think will prepare them well for the A-League.”
After a long career in the A-League spanning three grand finals, including a 2-1 loss to Brisbane in the 2012 grand final at Suncorp Stadium, the 30-year-old said he was looking forward to having the full support of the raucous Roar home crowds.
“We’re hoping to fill out the stadium every week, the Den are one of the most vocal supporter’s groups which makes Brisbane one of the hardest away games in the competition and we’re hoping to use that to our advantage,” he said.
Feature image credit: Brisbane Roar
Enjoy this content? Support The Football Sack
Due in part to COVID and lack of current sponsorship we are at risk of not having the funds to continue running The Football Sack. If you enjoy our content and support our work in training talented young writers, please support us with a donation. If every reader contributed just $3, our funding would be covered for over ten years.
| DONATE |
