By ADEM SARICAOGLU
SUNSHINE George Cross manager Tony Ciantar will lead a side mixed with experience and youth into the upcoming National Premier Leagues One season.
The Georgies were accepted into Victorian soccer’s new second tier league after finishing third in State League One last season.
Like many clubs now part of the NPL1, George Cross has been busily putting together its squad in readiness for the mid-March season kick off.
Former club captain Barry Devlin moved on to crosstown NPL1 rival St Albans over the summer, but Ciantar has since welcomed young gun Nejder Sahin from Fawkner, who will join a number of other youngsters already vying for spots in the first team.
With Football Federation Victoria expected to confirm later this week there will be no relegation out of NPL1 for at least the first year, Ciantar told Star 2014 will be a development year for his club.
“Where we finish is where we finish and we’re not striving to become champions, it is about development for us,” Ciantar said.
“These kids need to learn from somebody. We had some young players in our squad last year and they only learnt the trade by bumping up against the senior boys at training.
“We need to do the same thing so hopefully in two or three years, these kids are going to be good enough to take over.”
The Georgies have retained roughly half of their 2013 squad, with Robert Santilli, Serdar Pir, Zoran Petrovski and Caner Ucarli all confirmed as staying at Chaplin Reserve.
Ciantar said his core group of experienced regulars will prove crucial in the development of his younger brigade throughout the NPL1 campaign.
“We’ve retained seven players we’ve wanted to retain,” he said.
“The rest of the players have gone on to do their own thing, so we won’t hold that against them and we wish them all the best, but we’ve retained the players we needed and the rest will be all young kids.
“Hopefully we can field five or six young kids every week and also have a very young bench.”
The FFV is set to confirm the final fixtures for both the NPL and NPL1 later this week.
