A touch of Scottish football may creep into a local club’s game style this year, with Celtic United rolling out a coaching curriculum developed with their namesake – a top flight Scottish and international football team.
Identifying a need for a curriculum that could be uniquely theirs, Celtic United President Martin Thrift reached out to their namesake’s Head of Soccer Academy, Chris Smith, and subscribed to the mentoring program, believing it would provide a good balance between the two clubs.
“It’s been bouncing around a couple of Presidents before me, as a point of difference for our club, both for coaches and players. I just started doing some research on the internet of who offers these services and I found Celtic did coaching mentoring,” Mr Thrift told us.
“From Under 6 right through to A Grade, we’re all working to play the same sort of football so that makes our coaches’ life easier and there’s a pathway all the way through.”
The Scottish Premiership team has had many Australian connections, starting as far back as 1948 with centre-forward Dan Lavery, and the likes of Scott Macdonald, Mark Viduka, Tom Rogic, Jackson Irvine, Daniel Arzani, and Aaron Mooy all playing for the club over the years. Former Socceroos manager, Ange Postecoglou, also led Celtic from 2021 to 2023.
“Celtic’s game, particularly under Ange Postecoglou, as I think we’ve seen with Celtic and Tottenham and even here in Australia, it is a very possession-based, very attacking style of football, which is what I want Celtic [United] to have,” Mr Thrift says.
“What draws me to the possession-based style is it really can be inclusive. It shows that less-developed players can still be involved in the game because we’ve got a passing style, yet we still them allow to create one-on-one opportunities for those more developed players to express themselves.”
