Depending on how much you trust certain news sources, or how Australian Bureau of Statistics data is interpreted, Victorians fleeing the state may not come as a surprise.
But in an historical W-League (now A-League Women’s) context, it should be.
With Brisbane’s announcement of Nia Stamatopoulos as a squad member on Thursday, 10 Victorian players will line up for clubs outside Victoria this summer.
Welcome to Brisbane Roar, Nia Stamatopoulos! 👋
The former Junior Matildas midfielder has joined @garrathmc‘s squad for the season ahead! ✍️#BringTheRoar | @aleaguewomen
— Brisbane Roar FC (@brisbaneroar) December 2, 2021
To put that number in context, it took 13 combined seasons of W-League play back to 2008 for the same number of Victorian players to move interstate. 10 crossed the borders, with only eight taking the field, in 13 seasons. Now 10 will relocate in a single season. Something’s up, especially given the entire 2020 women’s NPL Victoria season was scratched without a ball kicked, and the 2021 campaign made it barely a third of the way before repeated lockdowns meant another abandonment.
It is not like Victoria was sitting on a hotbed of Matildas looking for new opportunities. The state’s only Matildas regular Steph Catley is at Arsenal in England, recently capped Beattie Goad is playing in La Liga Feminin, and Kyra Cooney-Cross is under contract at Melbourne Victory.
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Instead, this unprecedented exodus of Victorian players from their home state should be interpreted as an increase in professionalism by A-League Women’s clubs. At last, the scouting, the research, attempting to find an edge in the margins, has led clubs to the nation’s historic under-contributor.
Clubs previously inclined to play it safe or constrained by budget and go local, are now looking further afield for a slight edge and upgrade.
One of the dynamics at play is that players who had bided their time as train-ons or squad depth at Victory or City turned 18 or 19 and could commit to moving. At risk of becoming a lost generation, Victoria’s fab five from the 2018/19 Junior Matildas will at last, hopefully, see game time in the national league this summer.
Of the quintet, only Paige Zois is staying at home to play for Melbourne Victory, while Alana Jancevski and Claudia Mihocic have joined Perth Glory, Grace Taranto has signed for Adelaide, and the aforementioned Stamatopoulos is at Brisbane.
Sofia Sakalis and Sarah Cain will also join Perth, the former having overcome a lengthy rehab from an ACL tear and the latter having played a handful of games for Melbourne City last summer.
Former Victory backup ‘keeper Beth Mason-Jones has moved to Canberra, Annabel Martin has had her career revived by the Wellington Phoenix after a long injury layoff, and Annie Haffenden goes from City train-on to Roar squad member, with City having taken a fancy for Queensland defenders coming back the other way. New Adelaide acquisition Leia Varley, from Finley NSW (a town below the Barassi line) went to school in Shepparton and for all intents and purposes counts as a Victorian.
Last season, I bemoaned both Victorian clubs’ unwillingness to look within their own back yard and queried the responsibility they had in helping the state develop more Matildas. For the rest of the nation to recognise the opportunity, do the scouting and the due diligence, and commit to signing Victorian players, should be received as a heat-warming sign. This is a tangible example of clubs walking the walk when we hear the talk about A-League Women’s aspiring to become one of the world’s top domestic competitions. That squad assembly is no longer thinking within the square should be welcomed and celebrated by aspiring players in every state.
Of the 21 players Melbourne City have announced as signings (as opposed to train-ons) this season, six are Victorian, but one of those (Tyla-Jay Vlajnic) has been capped by Serbia. Of Victory’s 20 players signed, 13 are Victorian. So that’s 19 Victorians at Victory and City, 10 playing around the rest of the competition.
For the clubs, their focus is on winning the championship and may well they assemble whichever squad they see fit to chase it. With an impending World Cup, it will be fascinating to see if the nation’s second most populous state will get any closer to pulling its weight as far as national team contribution is concerned, now that so many more players will get an opportunity to play in the national league.
For the Victorian players working their way through junior and NPL ranks aspiring to play A-League Women’s, following the fortunes of the 18 and the 10 respectively will be a fascinating test case to watch, and something to keep in mind when the time comes to make that leap to the big stage themselves.
Then again, it could simply leave Western United in pole position to bring many of these transplanted Victorians back with the lure of game time and home comforts, should their entry go to plan for season 2022/23.
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