JOEYS BOY ON A PATH TO GLORY
THE Geelong region has produced its fair share of international soccer stars, and if early signs are anything to go by, there could be another one about to make his mark.
St Joseph’s College student Nickolas Skotnica has already travelled the world to play in representative games as a junior, but next month he will jet out to the UK for an intense training camp with one of Britain’s leading goalkeeping coaches.
It will be a reunion of sorts for Skotnica when he teams up with Dean Neil, having spent time with him earlier this year as part of an extended tour that saw him train with several Premier League clubs.
Such was the praise he received during that stint, the 16-year-old will now head back and said he was excited to spend more time honing his specialist craft.
“I’ve been doing some training in the UK with a goalkeeping coach, Dean Neil, who runs the Pro-1 goalkeeping academy,” Skotnica said.
“He is the head goalkeeping coach there and I played a couple of games locally for some experience in England which was great at a club called Aveley.
“I was training with Liverpool and got to speak to Steven Gerrard and just had lunch with the teams which was pretty good. I am just looking to try to be successful and maybe get a contract overseas … anything is possible, I hope, but I just have to see.”
Skotnica, who plays for the North Geelong Warriors, is a keen Chelsea fan and said he was first introduced to goalkeeping as a junior when nobody else wanted to do it full time.
“When I was younger they used to rotate goalkeepers and no one was a set goalkeeper, so I got put in one day and just fell in love with the position,” he said.
“I really enjoyed it and from then on I decided to go down that path.
“I like Kepa Arrizabalaga who plays for Chelsea, which is my team that I go for, and for a young goalkeeper that has come into the competition he is pretty good.”