Reigning NPL Champions Bentleigh Greens have the chance to win yet another Community Shield trophy, on the eve of the new 2020 season. Remarkably, this is the fifth consecutive time the Greens will feature in the traditional season curtain raiser. Even more remarkable is that they’ve won three of them and on Saturday they’ll be going for a fourth trophy win when they take on 2019 Dockerty Cup winner Hume City at the City Vista Reserve in Caroline Springs.

Greens coach Nick Tolios and his assistant Billy Theodoropoulos have been busy preparing a new look Bentleigh senior squad which includes up to 11-12 new signings and just six of last season’s squad. Speaking to Neos Kosmos leading up to the Community Shield match against Hume City, coach Tolios, said his squad “was excited that the season’s about to start. And it’s a good way to finish off pre-season by playing for a trophy. It’s not every day you do a tough pre-season to try and win something.”

The loss of three key players from the Greens championship winning team last year, keeper Ryan Scott, midfielder Tyson Holmes and utility Velibor Mitrovich may have been more than Tolios anticipated at the time, but it has given him a chance to freshen up the squad by putting together a new list. Having retained most of the back four from last season, his aims were to strengthen in midfield, introduce more utility players who can play two or more different positions, and increase the options in attack.

Speaking to Neos Kosmos during the week leading up to the community shield game, Tolios explained that when he took over, he felt Bentleigh lacked depth in attack. “I think that’s where last year when Billy and I took over the last two games, I think it was evident that going forward, they relied heavily on Thurtell and Mitrovic and not really had anyone else once they lost Valentino Yuel. So that was one area I definitely needed to strengthen and I think we’ve definitely done that with the likes of Alex Caniglia, Damian Iaconis, Brent McGrath, Finn Beakhurst, Kieran Dover and Alex Schiavo. These are boys that can play in two or three positions. And Thurtell is coming back from surgery.”

With so many players new to the club and to each other, it’s no surprise when Tolios says the team is still trying to figure each other out. He says the 10 or 11 new recruits, include “guys that have experience playing at this level and who just needed a fresh start”, as well as “a young and exciting bunch of boys, that I thought are going to grow and develop as the season goes on, especially once they start to get a bit of cohesion.”

READ MORE: Port Melbourne Sharks and Bentleigh Greens pick up experienced signings

“Obviously Bentleigh has made the finals every year. I think that’s a minimum requirement for us as a team, and the rest is to enjoy it. Hopefully we can gel quicker than what most people would like us to. If we can gel quickly, I think we’ll have a good year.”

Tolios’ teams at former club Kingston City, had a reputation for playing entertaining, attacking football. He says that the Greens style under his coaching is “probably going to be very similar to how Kingston played, very attacking minded, explosive, but also a team which is able to dictate and control the tempo a little bit better than we used to out at Kingston, just purely because of some of the level of players we’ve got in this team…we’re probably going to be a team which still looks to play attractive football and just attack. I love attacking and I was a defender,” Tolios laughs. “Hopefully that’s how I want to be seen and how I want my team to play.”

Tolios believes that the Greens main rivals for this season’s NPL title will be last year’s grand finalist Avondale, Oakleigh, Dandenong City and Hume City as the dark horse. He adds, “You can’t write off Heidelberg, as well. I know they’ve had a fair few changes. They’ve got winners in that team. They know what it takes to get the job done.”

READ MORE: Tolios moves from Kingston City to Kingston Heath

Kick off for the Community Shield match against Hume City, Saturday 8 February is at 5.00 pm, at City Vista Reserve, Caroline Springs.
Proceeds from the match will go towards Fire Relief effort.