Kiwi lead the SamoaTel Premier League after five matches, what have been the factors behind your winning run?
At the base of Kiwi’s success is a very strong team spirit and sense of togetherness. This runs throughout the whole club and everyone has a real passion for the club and for the game. Building on the foundation of this spirit, our success so far this season has been the result of a modernisation of the team formation and structure. Plus, the players are willing to learn and adapt to the new systems.
Which of your players have impressed you most so far?
We do not have a player of the match as everyone is contributing to the team effort in a different way – but following the instructions of the coach. Each player is aware of what his job is and what his contribution is to the team. For example, a player who tends to carry the ball too much is given a target of making 15 completed passes in a game and he is reminded by his team mates that he has to make that contribution. Fitness levels are good and all training is done with a ball. There is very little running without the ball. The evidence that this works is the confidence the players have on the ball during games.
You must be happy about the few number of goals the team has conceeded. Why have things worked well in this area?
The defence has been helped by the deployment of a holding midfield player and a system of both zonal and man marking. I have not seen evidence of this happening in Samoan football before and it has been very effective.
Kiwi have most recently had a hard-fought win over Moataa. How do you feel about the way that match turned out?
We expected a tough game from Moataa and that’s exactly what we got. We tried to dominate them early and it worked. But we expected that they would really pick up their tempo at the start of the second half and, sure enough, that is what happened. Instead of Kiwi calming the game down, we got caught up in their tempo – it was not until mid-way through the second half that we got control of the game again. Full credit to Moataa for the way they approached the game, I fully expect them to win many matches this season.
What is the future plan for the team?
The focus of training and future development of the team is on passing between channels and creating opportunities for passing. Instead of a player with the ball having just one option for the pass we want to give him two every time, adopting a system of playing in triangles and supporting the player on the ball. In addition, I do not think our set pieces are as good as they should be – we should be scoring more goals from set play, we are certainly practicing them enough.
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