Vidosic's review of the season so far

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Bruce Talbot

2024-12-26T06:00+00:00

Dario Vidosic. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

As our women’s first team enjoy a short break we caught up with head coach Dario Vidosic to reflect on the first half of the season, his ambitions for the remainder of the campaign and his relationship with men’s first-team head coach Fabian Hurzeler.

We went into the break fifth in the WSL and in the quarter-finals of the League Cup. How do you reflect on what’s happened so far?

“The first half of the season has been really positive, it's been enjoyable working with the girls and the staff and everyone in the club.

“From the first day that I stepped into the building everyone's been supportive. And I've built some nice friendships as well with people and I feel the support of everyone around the club, not just in the women's space, but throughout the club.

“The professionalism and willingness of the girls to learn and improve has made my job really easy. We’ve taken some important strides in the first part of the season and I'm looking forward to the next part and expanding even further.

“I think the narrative around Brighton has changed, especially the respect within the league. We've not had a team have a day off against us and that's because of what we bring now. Teams treat us very seriously.

“We know we're always going to get the best out of everyone when we match up and then with that comes the constant search for improvement and trying to keep a step ahead of everyone else. I think it's a constant search for perfection, even though you know you'll never catch it. And that's the beautiful thing - it's a never ending process.

“There's nothing nicer than winning. Fans want to be entertained but they want to celebrate, and they want to go home happy. It’s been good that we've been able to do that a lot this season, especially at home where we're undefeated, but we have to get even better – and I think we can.”

How have you found the WSL in reality compared to what you expected?

Dario was appointed women's first team head coach in the summer. 📷 by Kyle Hemsley.

“It’s not easy in this league to win games, and the results in the last round before Christmas were what no one expected. That’s just the level of the competition - if you do turn up a little bit off your game you will have a very difficult afternoon. But the league table or our position on it is irrelevant until the final whistle on the final day is blown.

You seem to have built up a good rapport with Fabian Hurzeler?

“He's been awesome. I'm very grateful to him for coming out and supporting us at home games when he can as well. It’s been an education to go and watch Fabian and his staff at work on the training ground and then play in the stadium. It’s a little bit of a pinch yourself moment because I was a kid in Australia watching the Premier League and now I’m here and able to stand pitch-side and to watch training.

“We catch up and go to dinner and just talk life in general, and a little bit of football. I'm very thankful to Fabian and his staff and I'll just be like a sponge soaking up as much information as I can whenever I’ve got that privilege to go over and watch men’s training.

Fabian Hurzeler and Dario Vidosic. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

“Fabian has helped me with a couple of things that he has seen in our matches. This is only my third year as a head coach, so I'm still in my infancy years and he’s coached already at the highest level, even though he's very young. He’s still quite experienced as he’s been eight to nine years as a head coach.

“We know what he has done at St. Pauli and what he's doing now at Brighton. You can always learn, and I think it's a nice friendship, there's a respect there and I'm proud of him. I wish them every success and long may they keep climbing up that table. It’s very tough to win games in the Premier League but I’m sure they will be back in the winners’ column again soon.”

What are you expecting and demanding from the players when they come back?

“Just to keep pushing. We've got a good level of understanding now and I think opposition teams are thinking about how they can stop us in different ways.

So it is fun, especially for myself, to keep trying to evolve and think of different ways to keep the opposition guessing and make it difficult to play against us. I think it's important to be open minded and push yourself. Our effort and intensity is always high. We train at a very high standard, so we're fully prepared on matchday.

“It’s about continuing the processes, applying our principles, trying to evolve and developing the girls. And I think you need to enjoy the journey as well. We've been a dark horse this season and now the big clubs like Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal are not going to sit back when they play us, they're going to be looking at us as one of the top opponents within the WSL.

“We've not achieved anything yet, but we want to be right up there. I don’t want to shy away from it and say we need time to build. I'm not shy of the pressure, I sort of enjoy it. I want us to be a success and win trophies.”