As Stefan Baricevic steps out of his car to join his Whittlesea Ranges teammates for pre-season training, there is a spring in his, and his teammates’, steps as they brace themselves for another tiring session in the Melbourne summer heat.
The 22-year-old heads into his second season at Epping Stadium full of confidence that the perennial NPL battlers will be promotion contenders this time around.
“Pre-season has started really positively for us as we’ve all come back from the off season extremely focused and wanting to achieve our goal of promotion” the central midfielder says.
The Ranges have re-secured the services of several important members of the 2015 squad, headlined by Matthew Cundari and including Baricevic, and have also added plenty of experience and quality, such as former Bendigo man and Papua New Guinea international George Slefendorfas.
Continuity and change is also present on the sidelines, with manager Vinko Buljubasic retained and joined at Epping Stadium by new assistant Lirim Selimi and goalkeeper coach Steve Tilevski.
Buljubasic is embarking on his third full season at the helm, having initially taken over in the second part of the 2013 State League season.
The 43-year-old won two NSL titles with the Melbourne Knights in the mid-1990’s, followed by a successful four year spell at Perth Glory, before returning to Somers Street to finish his playing career while assisting manager and former teammate Joe Biskic.
His coaching career has included two temporary managerial positions with St Albans Saints, assistant roles at the Knights to both Biskic and Chris Taylor, and earning promotion into the second tier with North Geelong Warriors in 2009.
Buljubasic is currently achieving steady progress at his current employers.
A 13th place finish in year one of the NPL left the former Knights fan favourite with plenty of work to do ahead of their 2015 campaign.
Although the Ranges 7th position in the 10 team West division standings was a slight improvement on the previous season, there were signs that with greater consistency and a better start to the season a promotion push might not be far off the cards.
Baricevic has been impressed by the additions, saying they have added “increased professionalism” and contends that his teammates like what they see so far during their preparations as well.
“The core bulk of last season’s squad has been maintained while the new signings have added depth in positions which needed strengthening,” he says.
“We’ve added some experienced players into the side who add quality on and off the park and as a whole will look to improve our results on the pitch.
“The new coaching staff assisting Vinko [Buljubasic] have come into the club and brought about a lot of professionalism, with the boys loving the changes they have brought about.
“Lirim [Selimi] is pushing us real hard and challenging us to take our game to the next level, while Steve [Tilevski] is very professional and particular in his approach.”
Baricevic is looking to kick on after a promising 2015, where the box-to-box midfielder established himself as a starting regular by playing in every one of the Ranges’ league fixtures.
“I want to improve on last season as although I felt that I had a solid season personally, I believe that I need to give more to the team and hopefully my own improvement will help push us higher up the table,” he says.
After initially making his senior debut for childhood club Melbourne Knights during their run to the 2011 Dockerty (then Mirabella) Cup final, Baricevic spent two years at Heidelberg United.
At Olympic Village, he was a part of George Katsakis’ promotion-winning squad of 2013 which returned to the top tier after a one year hiatus from the top.
Although Baricevic left the Bergers in mid-2014 in search of more regular first-team football, he believes he can draw on his promotion experience at the club and instill what he learned at Heidelberg to the Ranges squad for the upcoming campaign.
“It [2013] was an unbelievable year and there are many things that I learnt from that year that I will bring to 2016 on both an individual and team basis,” he says.
“Learning off key older players such as Daniel Heffernan and Nick Marinos was a very fulfilling experience as those guys taught me that while the bad days were few and far between, they shouldn’t be dwelled upon with the most important thing being to try and get back straight up.”
“This mindset was central to us creating a winning mentality between the whole squad whereby defeat just wasn’t an acceptable outcome; we had to win.
“I will try to drive the successful and winning mentality gathered in 2013 to this season and hopefully this can be replicated in our results”
With the sun setting down on the tip of Melbourne’s Northern suburbs, Baricevic and his Ranges teammates cool down and look ahead to another long season, excited by the new horizons with thoughts of promotion not far off their minds.
Image: Mark Avellino