Football fans in Australia are accustomed to the sight of foreign coaches in the dugout at A-League matches but less so at the semi-professional NPL level in Victoria. The Melbourne Knights appointed former Croatian international Aljosa Asanovic as coach in 2018 and last season South Melbourne entertained the prospect of former Real Madrid star Roberto Carlos as coach of their inaugural A-League team if their bid succeeded.
South didn’t get their A-League license but they ended up with a foreign coach with Spanish connections in 39-year-old Esteban Quintas who was promoted from an assistant coach’s role to the senior coach’s position following the departure of previous head coach Con Tangalakis after Round 7 this season. His appointment may not have been greeted with much fanfare but the Argentinian born Quintas is starting to attract plaudits especially with the upturn in South’s results which have given its fans a renewed sense of optimism heading into the second half of the season. In the ten matches he has been in charge, the team has seven wins (including five on the trot), a draw and two losses, and has climbed to within three points of the top six on the NPL ladder, and one win away from qualifying for the national stage Round of 32 of the FFA Cup.
Speaking to Neos Kosmos midweek, ahead of the team’s Round 15 trip to Dandenong City on Friday evening, the affable Quintas explained that since taking on the senior coach’s job, he tries ” everyday to change the mentality of the players,” so that they work collectively both when attacking and when defending. “I try to get all players to understand that soccer is a sport all about the team. It’s not tennis 1 v 1. It’s 11 v 11 on the pitch and five players on the bench. The important thing is all together, fight together, all people work in defence, all people attack.”
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Quintas believes the work of a new coach is impossible to see in the first week. “The work of one coach is apparent maybe after one month or a month and a half. This is the key now. Against Heidelberg (last month) for example, goal number three, if you look at the photo in the celebration, all players, all bench players, all technical staff, are all together celebrating one goal. For me, when I look at this photo I think, ‘Ok, now people understand me.'”
One South player whose positive development under the new coach has been an integral part of South’s progress, is forward Giuseppe ( Pep) Marafioti, whose recent goal brace helped South to a come from behind win against Bentleigh Greens, and whose crosses led to South’s goals in the 2-1 cup win over Langwarrin recently. Upon taking over, Coach Quintas expected Marafioti to make adjustments to his game, and these reflect the changes he expects from his whole team.
“My coaching style is strikers working defence, wingers working defence, number 10 working defence (pressing). All people work. In my style, if one player doesn’t work, it breaks the team.”
“One big example now is Pep Marafioti. Marafioti, the first three weeks with me, he didn’t play, not even on the bench. Nothing. After one match he plays and begins to change. Pep understands, he needs to work, because if he doesn’t work, he doesn’t play with the team. But now Pep Marafioti is performing at a high level. I’m very happy with the level Marafioti is now. But he understands. If Marafioti understands, all people understand.”
Quintas works hard scouting opposing teams and players in planning and preparing for matches, attending two or three matches a week. “I think as a coach, you need to understand what is key to the opposing team.”
Using the recent win away to Heidelberg as an example, he says, “Before the game against Heidelberg, I say to the boys, ‘Heidelberg has these characteristics, we have these characteristics. We need the match to go in this street. If the match goes in this street, we will win. If the match goes in that street, Heidelberg will win, because it’s different, the styles…We need to understand the situation, what happens when Heidelberg lose the ball, what happens with Heidelberg when they recover the ball. We need this. All people understand and all people work hard. The players now, I’m very happy, because when I say right, they play right. I say left, they all play left. This is the best for each coach.”
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By scouting lower leagues, Quintas has signed Josh Dorren as reserve keeper from Doveton, and midfielder Melvin Beckett from Geelong. He has also picked up forward Peter Skapetis from Dandenong Thunder, and he’s currently working on signing a defender in the current mid-season transfer window, having just lost Luke Adams to injury. “We need to fix a little problem in defence because we don’t have players, not because we have bad players. We have only five defenders in the squad.”
The coach is reluctant to be drawn on how far South can progress this season. Instead he says, that when he took on the job, he had one mission. “The mission is to escape the last three positions (on the ladder.) This is the clear objective of the club. We only think of the next match. We don’t have one plan, like win the league, or win the cup. Nothing. My style is only to think of the next match. We don’t have a plan after that. Soccer is impossible to have one plan. Only plan is the next training session, the next match. No more. This is my idea.”
“When Esteban coaches South Melbourne, the club’s only promise for the supporters is that the players will run and fight 200 per cent. Because if there’s no run, no fight, there’s no play. This is South Melbourne. Number one! Work for the team.”
