Many coaches would tell you just how important it is to have a quality keeper between the posts for their team to be successful.
With high calibre goalkeepers Alistair Bray and Stuart Webster on their books, Bentleigh Greens have a luxury that many teams in the league would die for.
Just who to select is a tough decision for head coach John Anastasiadis, who is delighted to have to make such a difficult choice every week.
“That’s the headache’s of the coach and it goes with the space but if you don’t have those headaches then you shouldn’t be coaching,” Anastasiadis said.
“Last year I remember that we made a decision first game, that [Stuart Webster]’s come off a winning championship with Dandenong, keeper of the year and we started Alistair Bray, an unknown and Alistair went on to become the U21 player of the year and unfortunately got injured.
“I reckon if he didn’t get injured he probably would have been player of the year. He was that good.”
In fact Anastasiadis cannot fathom how Bray hasn’t made the step up to the A-League, having previously spent time with Melbourne Heart’s Youth team.
The club instead went along with former Melbourne Victory and Perth Glory keeper Tando Velaphi as their second keeper to Andrew Redmayne, with injury ruling Bray out of even making the National Youth League squad this time around.
“It staggers me that Melbourne Heart hasn’t signed him as a second keeper at this stage to be honest but this boy’s got a massive future,” he said.
As for who he would go with come Sunday’s Grand Final rematch against Northcote, Anastasiadis is just going to pick whoever is in form, and warned against chopping and changing between the two each week.
“Webby’s in his final years I suppose but he’s still quality and his experience really gets him through,” he said.
“We were going to start with Stuart [against Ballarat] and see how things pan out from there.
“In the olden days you could do that, I reckon up and down with keepers. It’s a very specific position, it’s a very dangerous position and we got to be careful.
“I don’t like doing it to be honest so I wasn’t really looking at going up and down, it’s all depending on form for me.
“So you as a keeper you do the right things, and the team performs and if you concede goals as long as it’s not your fault continuously, I mean you are going to have games where one may be your fault, two maybe, and if that keeps on happening obviously you make that change.”
Photos: Zee Ko