Pedro Moreira

Scotty and Izzy got us started this morning, catching up with Auckland FC goalkeeper Oli Sail, a man coming off a pretty brutal injury last year, who won't feature until potentially the derby.

He talks about new head coach Pedro Moreira and how he's going in camp.

It's certainly fresh ideas and, and a fresh take on things.

It's a change, but change is good for everyone, right? It, it helps you evolve and adds more strings to your bow.

Uh, they're also third in goals scored last season, so they were able to do it at both ends of the pitch.

Um, I suppose the big question for this season, can they defend their championship? Steve Corica, who has been there for the past two seasons, he's left and replaced by Pedro Moreira.

They've lost some key players though, Mopper, and their two center backs, I mean, Dean Hall and Jake Gilbert-Ryke.

Plenty of attacking weapons, Jesse Randall, Giannou Mai.

But I know you, you love being out there playing.

L- what about, uh, Pedro Moreira? We've had him on the show.

Mm.

I've got the chance to meet Pedro myself.

But, um, yeah, there's gonna be change on the football pitch, and hopefully good ones.

So, you know, Melbourne City's a tough, tough test this weekend, but, um, we're looking forward to it.

H- how do you, sh- how has he structured the season, Coach Pedro Moreira? Like, how has he structured it? The reason I ask that is two years ago you just fell short, so there would've been a lot of hunger and desire to go one better.

You've done that, so now you've gone from being the hunters to the hunted.

Auckland FC.

Um, new coach, Pedro Moreira, I think his name is.

We don't know much about him.

I think it's his first head coaching job.

Um, let's, let- let's not talk about the premier's plate and the titles and all of that.

What did Auckland FC get right before they even played a game to launch themselves? Now we can look back at what they did.

I think that humility that we talked about with Pedro Moreira's recruitment was implicit, was perhaps infused into the way that Auckland started off.

They came at it from a fan first mentality, and I think alongside that was a pathway for local, but perhaps not necessarily regionally local, but also nationally local players.

Auckland FC.

New coach, Pedro Moreira, I think his name is.

We don't know much about him.

I think it's his first head coaching job.

I'm really, really nervous about that one.

And, uh, lastly on the defending champions, uh, Pedro Moreira comes in to replace Steve Corica at Auckland.

They, they lost Guillermo Meier, but they've, they've kept most of their big guns.

Apparently there was interest in even a, a transfer fee for Sam Cosgrove, but he remains committed.

But it seems across the entire league there's just a consensus that because their, uh, exemptions for a bit of extra salary cap help as an expansion franchise have now expired, and they're effectively on equal footing as everyone else, that they'll come back to the pack.

My greatest concern is if you hire foreign coaches that don't understand the mechanics of the salary cap, don't understand that you can just wheel and deal in the transfer market 'cause if you wanna terminate someone, their wage might count against the salary cap and leave you less money to play with bringing in replacements.

I feel like foreign coaches find the A-League really tough to crack for all of those little reasons, and unless Pedro Moreira was really well briefed and knows exactly what he was getting into, there will be some teething problems there.

Yeah.