With less than eight weeks remaining until the 2018/19 Hyundai A-League season gets underway, one of our new recruits says an exciting campaign is on the horizon.
Young defender Stefan Nigro joined the Roar earlier in pre-season after a number of seasons at Melbourne Victory, including last year’s championship-winning campaign.
The 22-year-old understands what it takes to be the Hyundai A-League’s best and believes his new club is more than capable of being Kings of Australia once again.
“Everything is coming along really well, and the goal is to win it – I want to win another championship,” Nigro said.
“The environment of pushing each other is what makes success and wins championships. We cover all bases across the park, so training everyday is extremely hard and everyone’s pushing one another.
“We’re in the right place to really have a good season.”
It’s been a fairly straightforward adjustment to life in Brisbane for the up-and-coming defender who has slotted in seamlessly to the Roar’s attractive style of football.
After joining the Club partway through pre-season preparations, Nigro pin-pointed a few key areas to work hard on before the campaign gets underway.
“I’m really enjoying the football side of things, and it’s obviously a lot warmer than Melbourne during winter. That’s also great for our fitness – training and preparing for the season in this heat,” he continued.
“I make weekly, monthly and season-long goals, and for me, it’s about improving my fitness and catching up with the rest of the boys who started a few weeks before me. I’ve been putting my head down and working hard and received some good feedback from the coaches.”
He has earned game time in two pre-season matches against Wellington Phoenix and Sydney FC to date and will be putting his hand up for more minutes against another Hyundai A-League side this Saturday.
The Roar take on the Victory in Morwell, approximately 150km outside of Melbourne in what will be a surreal experience for the new Roar defender.
“I’ve never played against a former club, I was there for about four or five years from when I began in the youth set-up. That part of my career is done now and I’m fully focused on my job here at Brisbane Roar,” Nigro continued.
“You treat every game the same. For me personally, it’s about doing my job and focusing on getting a win and more confidence before the season begins.”
“As a team, we’ve highlighted areas that we need to improve on and we’ve done that. This will be another good test for us, and if we can hit those targets that we’ve laid out, we’ll be raring to go come Round 1.”
