South Melbourne have secured the signature of prized Oakleigh Cannons utility Matthew Foschini for the upcoming 2016 NPL Victoria season, signalling a winning culture as his motivation for the move.
The 25-year old revealed that a chat with coach Chris Taylor about the vision of South Melbourne helped sell the project, and that the demands of success are something he believes he’ll revel in.
“I sat down with CT [Chris Taylor] and he explained the vision of the club and where they want to be moving forward and I really liked the fact that the club likes to win. I like to win as well, they don’t expect anything less,” Foschini said.
“Being the team everyone wants to beat is good and it’s a pressure I thrive under and I really enjoy. That’s what made me want to come down here was the fact that this club demands success and at the end of the day if you don’t deliver it, it’s seen as a failure.
“To have that on your back for the season, and have that bar to achieve, it’s something that really drew me here.”
The son of former AFL player Silvio Foschini – of St Kilda and South Melbourne Swans fame – the hard-working defender revealed how he got his start in the round ball code of football.
“I grew up in the South-Eastern suburbs of Melbourne and I played soccer for my local team Glen Waverley. My dad was a professional AFL player so I had a love for all sports but I really took to soccer,” Foschini said.
“It was just a family thing really, being from an Italian background – there were always soccer balls around at family functions. I got my my love for the game there and I played for my local team.
“By the time I was 10-12, I realised I wasn’t too bad at it and decided to pursue it even more. As I got older, I didn’t really make any rep squads, but I continued to play because I really enjoyed it.
“Luckily enough, when I was 17, I made the Melbourne Victory youth team and then the first team the year after. Now I’m here at South, which is really exciting and something I’m looking forward too.”
Having started his senior career at the Cannons in 2007, Foschini then spent five seasons at Victory, where he was utilised at both right-back and centre-back in a five-year stint, which saw him make 53 appearances between 2008-2013.
“Going back to my Victory days, Ernie Merrick signed me up and gave me a great opportunity. I really owe a lot to him because he gave me my breakthrough into professional football,” Foschini said.
“I’ve worked under Kevin Muscat and Ange Postecoglou, two of the best coaches in the land at the moment. I learnt a lot from Kevin and Ange, stuff that I’ve learnt from them I take into my daily football, even now. It’s things that I’ll carry throughout my whole career.”
This season, the 25-year-old made seven league and three FFA Cup appearances for the Cannons after joining mid-season from Indian I-League club Salgaocar FC, where he impressed in spades for his dedicated performances under the stewardship of close friend Arthur Papas.
Foschini revealed that he turned down the opportunity to work once more with Papas at his new club Green Gully before opting for Lakeside Stadium.
“Of course, it was an option [to join Green Gully]. But at the end of the day, [Arthur Papas and I] are still friends and I’ve always said friendships are more important than anything that happens in football,” he said.
“Last year I got the chance to work with a good friend of mine [Papas] at Oakleigh and he’s a fantastic coach with great visions and great philosophies in football, and a great human being. He always wanted what was best for me and I learnt a lot from him, even coming back to the NPL.
“For me being this young and still learning, that was important and he taught me things even at this level, which was great for me.”
Despite his triumphantly seamless transition back into the NPL Victoria system, Foschini admitted it’s still been a tough two-year period for him personally, as he fruitlessly failed to secure a professional contract despite trialling across two different continents.
“It’s been rough for me the last two years. I fell out of the A-League; it was all going smoothly and the dream was alive and well, but for numerous number of reasons, I fell out and went to India for a year, which was both a great footballing and life experience,” he said.
“I made a lot of good friends that I still have to this day. After that, it all went backwards. I struggled to find a team anywhere and I was reluctant to come back to the NPL for a lot of reasons. I had worked so hard to become a professional and I thought [the NPL] was the easy way out.
“So I tried my hand in a number of Asian countries, but it’s not an easy graft over there and it didn’t work out. I went to North America, to Canada but things didn’t work out there as well.”
Foschini is hoping to find his rhythm in his first full season in the NPL Victoria system since his return to Australia and fall in love with the game he cherished as a child once more.
“It’s been a hard graft and at times I’ve fallen out of love with the game that I really enjoyed as a kid. But it’s just about me getting back to just enjoying my soccer and if it takes me back to the professional level, it takes me back,” he said.
‘If not, I’m at a good club and at a place where I can just try and have a good time, play well and win trophies. At the end of the day, that’s what this club is about – it demands success and I’m a winner, I’ve always been like that and to be somewhere like this is great for me.”