Colts coach drives club’s Oz odyssey
MEET the man responsible for bringing one of world football’s most famous clubs to the Gold Coast.
Coomera Colts junior coach Andrew Whelan has been the driving force behind LA Galaxy’s groundbreaking Australian odyssey, with the US powerhouse this week announcing plans for trials at Carrara (June 25-26) and in Sydney (July 4-5) next year.
The initiative is the result of 18 months of toil for Sydney-raised Whelan, who coached his sons in Coomera’s under-8s and 10s this season after joining the club six years ago.
“I emailed LA Galaxy over a year ago and basically put the opportunity to them to look at coming to Australia or whether they’d even thought about it,” the Upper Coomera resident said.
“It was purely just looking around Australian football and (saying) ‘what’s not happening?’ and seeing what could be done with a global club. They contacted me and said they were interested but asked if I could develop a proposal to tell them what’s happening around the Australian football market, why it would be an opportunity for them and so on.
“I developed that proposal and they got back to me within about a week to say it sounds really good. It hadn’t been done in Australia.
“There’s always lots of camps and things like that but there’s a lot of young players who don’t get the opportunity to trial in front of a club like this or even in front of some of the clubs in Australia. To have Galaxy recognise it as an opportunity to grow their brand and look abroad to grow their talent (is great).
“Hopefully, one day (we can) see an Australian player pull on an LA Galaxy jersey.”
Formed in 1996, the Galaxy have boasted some of the biggest names in the game on their books, including David Beckham, Steven Gerrard and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Whelan said the 2019 trials could be just the tip of the iceberg. “We want to make this a yearly occurrence. We’re already talking about 2020 and doing trials in New Zealand,” he said.
“For 2020 I’d like to see female trials as well because I think we’ve got some great talent in Australia. We’ve also discussed sending some of the successful teams from the Gold Coast and Sydney over to play in their tournaments that they have in Los Angeles.”
As part of their Coast visit, the Galaxy will run a threeday school holiday clinic for 75 junior players at Coomera from June 30 to July 2.
HOPEFULLY ONE DAY (WE CAN) SEE AN AUSTRALIAN PLAYER PULL ON AN LA GALAXY JERSEY ANDREW WHELAN