Image: Smile for Peter
Until recently, it was easy to forget that Arthur Papas was only 36 years old. It would appear on the surface as if three years coaching in India, before returning home and steering Oakleigh Cannons away from relegation in 2015, may have taken its toll.
Yet calmness always pervades when the young coach speaks, and why wouldn’t he be calm? A whirlwind 2016 campaign continues tonight when his Green Gully side faces off against Melbourne Knights for a chance of an FFA Cup quarter finals appearance in what is possibly the clubs biggest game in their history.
Recently linked with the vacant Mariners job after Tony Walmsley’s sacking, Arthur Papas continues to knock on the door, having been on a coaching journey spanning two continents.
Observing an already impressive career from a distance, immense variety tangles irreparably with familiarity. Yet for the 36-year-old, one pattern sticks out as a rare example of consistency. His ability to propel a club to new heights.
Since being thrown into the national round-ball shaped spotlight, he’s remained as one of the profession’s rising stars.
In his first season as a first team coach, Papas won VPL coach of the year, still the youngest to ever do so, by taking the Cannons to their first ever grand final.
Experientially the wiser following five years away from the NPL, Papas would succeed Miron Bleiberg at Oakleigh last year, steering them to the quarter final stage of the FFA Cup, a Dockerty Cup final and rescuing a team that at the time of appointment was on five points and in the bottom three.
The same feat now beckons at Gully. A vastly improved Cavaliers in 2016, with Papas at the helm, have subsequently made the finals stage of every competition they entered.
While Friday’s NPL elimination final defeat was tough to stomach, Papas has bigger fish to fry. Despite the fading Knights’ stuttering league form, it looks to be a tightly fought contest.
Gully go in off the back of a season highlight win against the Central Coast Mariners in the FFA Cup Round of 32. The victory, the first for any NPL club against A-League opposition, came courtesy of two late goals, including a Liam Boland screamer in the 92nd minute. It’s another imposing notch in the belt of Arthur Papas, yet one of the characterisations of young managers is their ability to always look forward.
“I came to Green Gully as a means to take the next step in my coaching career. As a club it offered the opportunity to plan with the knowledge the structure surrounding is sound and stable, championships are what we all aspire to, but also to work in positive environments and to have the support to plan longer term are just as rewarding and this is what I feel Green Gully offered without having to worry about so many things off the field.”
“This season we can be optimistic about what we’ve been able to achieve so far. I’ve enjoyed my coaching again most importantly and the group of players I can’t fault in terms of commitment and endeavour. I’m certain that what we’re doing is going to put us in a very strong position in the long term.
“We’re in a situation that we’ve been in for a while, where it is a positive season and also has tested us in many areas. We’ve had the Dockerty Cup Final, we’ve made the (NPL) finals for the first time in a couple of years and we’ve got the FFA Cup still coming up.”
Yet as Papas admits, three separate campaigns may have emerged slightly too suddenly for the club: “Quite simply on Friday night we didn’t perform, the critical moments of the game, we didn’t capture them. Okay, it tells you where the team needs to go moving forward. We will regroup for Tuesday night.”
“We’ve played on three fronts. Alongside Bentleigh who right now are the benchmark team in Victoria, we’re the only team in the state to have competed in the final rounds of every competition this season. Did we set up the team depth for this? Probably not, that is something that with improved planning and time we will correct as a club in the future.”
Though, as the seemingly ever-composed Papas states after Friday night: “We just shrug it off, it’s just another game and we move on. Result was disappointing on the night, but I know very clearly that in the same way we defeated them 5-0 earlier in the year, we have not been close to a full team for some months now due to being decimated by injuries hence I have to also reflect on the whole situation rather than an isolated result”.
Given his achievements, and the media speculation linking him to the Central Coast job recently awarded to Paul Okon, tonight’s encounter provides another opportunity in the national spotlight for Papas.
“It’s difficult to say because jobs can go one of two ways. You can walk into a job that everyone thinks is doomed and in the end you can turn it around. That’s not a job that daunts a coach if he wants the opportunity. But in saying that, I chose not to get involved in the media speculation talk because I’m a contracted coach.
“Those things take their course and you don’t control, needless to say there are some very good coaches outside the system that would equally be deserving of an opportunity”
While keeping both feet on the ground ahead of tomorrow night’s pivotal cup clash would be a noble pursuit, one has to wonder where the refreshing attitude Papas instils into his professional endeavours will eventually take him.
The next hurdle every Australian coach knows too well is the lack of opportunities resulting from just 10 professional clubs.
However with Papas’ previous experience, there is more than one possible avenue opening for an ambitious young coach in the near future. Green Gully may have to work hard to secure the talent they have at their disposal.