Drago Barišić - Taking over the World

The final press conference of my career had been quite emotional, and at 29-years old: I was retiring far too early. The world was in a strange place at the moment, and every industry had been forced to adjust the way it operated, in order to be able to move forward again in the future. The salaries on offer in Montenegro had never been brilliant, and it’d always been a case of trying to move abroad to make a better living, with it being a back-up option to keep fit whilst looking for that next move. With that being said: my career hadn’t been great, and I hadn’t made the type of money that the players make in the likes of England, France, Germany, etcetera.

Far from it!

I’d had a few moves abroad in the past, and been wise enough to save a lot of the money, but at the end of the day: I wouldn’t be retiring any time soon. I wanted to stay in football in some form, and over the coming weeks or months, I'm hoping to find what that’ll be. I've had a few offers to do some media work, which could be interesting, whilst a few friends that own private academies have asked if I’d like to do some work with them. Again: that’s interesting to me. It’s all about working out what I want to do, and simply put: I don’t know what that is at the moment.

In the meantime, it’s time for me to spend some time with my family, and I’ll then go from there.

In the weeks following my retirement, I caught up with some friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time, ate whatever I wanted, and enjoyed not having to go to training. At the same time: I missed football. Not the day to day stuff, it was the camaraderie of my teammates that I was missing most. You get so used to having these people around you, they essentially become extended family, and to not have that daily interaction anymore: it felt strange. I’ll admit that I had to lean on people at times for some support, and the longer it went on: the more I realized that I hadn’t been as ready to retire as I thought I had been.

My whole family lives in Italy, always has, with me the only member of the family to head abroad. Despite being born in Rome, I’d spent the majority of my adult life living abroad, and it’d helped me grow so much as a person. To have had the opportunity to live abroad, experience other cultures: it opened my mind to new ideas. With that being said, I was looking forward to some time at ‘home’ with them, to catch up with them properly after so many years apart. I was fortunate that as an Italian citizen, I didn’t have to jump through too many hoops to fly to Rome, though I still had to prove a few things before I was allowed to fly.

Upon entering Italy, I was required to do a mandatory 10-days of quarantine, which although frustrating: I did without any complaints. It’d been that long since I’d seen my family in-person that I would’ve jumped through as many hoops as they'd put in front of me, and the happiness/relief I felt upon being able to exit quarantine: it was indescribable. As I exited where I’d been staying, I noticed my father’s Fiat, put my bag in the trunk of the car, and took the seat on the passenger side.

My name is Drago Barišić, and this is my story…

It’d been nice to spend some time at home in Italy, but I’ll admit: I became quite restless after a month or so. I had no idea on what was next for me career-wise, and that lack of certainly led to an anxiety that I’d rarely encountered during my playing career. There were days where I considered heading to the gym, getting myself as fit as possible, and trying to relaunch my career in the lower leagues of Italy. The simple fact is: I wasn’t good enough to do so. I'm not going to kid you and give you this illusion that I was a top player: I wasn’t, and it’s the reason I’d spent almost the entirety of my career outside of Italy.

With that being said: I’d enjoyed a solid enough playing career. After showing promise as a youngster, I bounced from a few Serie A academies to a Serie B academy, which led to me making a few cup appearances as a 19-year old. Long story short: my future wasn’t at that level. I dropped down another division, but by the time I was 22-years old, I was already in the Serie D, and wondering how I was going to earn a legitimate living from the game I loved so much. Some people look at the money that players are earning at that level, and they think it’s good. What they don’t realize is that a lot of the time, your salary is either paid late, or you never receive it at all, and have to go to FIFA to try and receive it.

For me: I went unpaid for close to 12-months whilst playing in Serie D.

But that’s enough reminiscing of my career! The past is the past, and right now: I need to be focusing on the future. Due to the pandemic, I've been unable to complete any coaching licence courses, which is quite frustrating, and limits my options. I've done a little bit of work in private academies that are owned by people that I know, and although it’s been a breath of fresh air, it doesn’t bring the type of adrenaline rush that I'm so used to from football either. Having to deal with parents that think their child is the next big thing is quite frustrating to, and not being allowed to tell these families the truth means that they're [ultimately] setting unrealistic expectations for their children.

I’d never realized how many people I’d fallen out of touch with during my career, and after looking over the comments on my social media pages, I’d made a more conscious effort to re-engage contact with the people who I’d lost touch with. It was good to hear from them, and with the way technology is these days, face-to-face calls meant it felt like there were no barriers on us. Truth be told: we’re still restricted in what we can and can’t do in our day to day life. I try not to focus on the negativity though, and prefer to try to focus on the next moves forward.

I'm currently talking with a friend about potentially doing some coaching work with a lower league club, but with me having no accreditation: there's a few hurdles that I’ll need to jump through first. Even if it means that I'm only there in an unofficial way, I'm not worried, as it’d just give me some form of purpose at the same time. To be back in the day to day grind of football would be fantastic, and I'm hopeful that something can come of the talks that we've had.

With that being said: I'm not holding my breath either.

The best part about being back in Rome is the ability to see my family every day, and I never realized just how much I’d missed my mother’s cooking. I've had the chance to meet nieces and nephews that I’d only ever seen on Facetime before, and we’re in that place of trying to get to know each other properly. They're still a bit unsure of me, and when you consider that I've pretty much been non-existent in their lives so far: it’s understandable. The best thing I can do is give them some time and space, and hope that they eventually get to the point where I no longer feel like a complete stranger to them.

I've also had a few opportunities to head to the Stadio Olimpico to watch Lazio play. I've been fortunate to see some tremendous players represent the club during my lifetime, but I'm just so impressed by the likes of Ciro Immobile and Sergej Milinković-Savić. They're word-class players, and I'm doubtful as to whether or not the club can hold onto them long-term. With Immobile, there might be a chance, but Milinković-Savić... he must be of interest to the big clubs across the continent. I only hope that if he's to leave: the club gets an enormous fee for him!

It'd be such an amazing feeling to manage a team in a game at the Stadio Olimpico one day, and if I were to dream for a moment: that’s what it would be.

@walkinshaw: Who knows where I plan to go!? But taking a role in Africa is definitely of interest to me, and I wish that SI would make more leagues playable without the need for Editor Data files.

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@Justice: W is for.... WINNING

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@Jack: A lot of players struggle with their identity after their playing career ends, and it appears that Drago is now having similar struggles. Thankfully, he's surrounded by friends and family, which is always great to have during times of struggle.

After a few weeks of discussions, I was formally invited to join the backroom staff of Serie C side Latino Calcio 1932. It was a good opportunity for me to get used to the day-to-day life of coaching, and I had an agreement with the club that I could depart at any time with neither of us being required to pay compensation. The money they’d offered me was enough for it to be worthwhile, though it certainly wasn’t much of a wage at the same time. I went into the job with the thought of the money at the back of my mind: the experience would be much more valuable to me.

I'm not going to lie: I was enjoying myself. There's a good vibe around the club, and having been promoted from the Serie D last season, our expectations are to simply avoid being dragged into a relegation battle. The players know that we’re up against it, and they're doing their utmost to perform to the level required, but our form can only be described as ‘patchy’ in my opinion. Simply put, we just need to win as many home games as possible, and hope to pick up a few points in our away games where possible.

Our manager, Daniele Di Donato, has tasked me with getting our attacking unit firing, and at the moment: I'm probably not meeting his expectations. It’s something that we need to improve, and I'm hopeful that our strikers will start to convert their chances soon.

As you can see from the table below, we’re just not consistent at all, and if we don’t get ourselves sorted soon: we’re going to be dragged into the relegation battle. There's certain players here that are either badly out of form, or just not up to standard, and that’s having an effect too. The recruitment here hasn’t exactly been the best in my opinion, and there's a noticeable lack of quality and balance in the squad. Regardless, this is the squad that we have, and we need to get results with it: that’s our job.

The frustrating thing for me is the fact that I'm doing all this work with the attackers, and they look great on the training pitch, but come matchday: we’re back to square one! It’s like they forget everything that we’ve done throughout the week, the bad habits creep back in, and the fans gesticulations begin from the terraces. The fans must really wonder what we work on, because if you watch the attackers: you’d never know! With that being said, there have been a few bright moments for us in recent weeks, and I'm now hopeful that we’re now going to go on a run of form where we show what we’re truly capable of.

There's been a few times where I've felt that the club might take advantage of the termination clause that’s in their advantage in my contract, but thankfully: they haven’t. With that being said, I'm realistic about my job security, and I know that I need to have a back-up option or two in my back pocket if it’s to happen. That’s not been as easy to sort though, and it might be a case of dropping even further down the leagues in Italy: something I'm not too keen to do if I'm totally honest.

A few agents have reached out to me in the last month or so, with them intimating that they can find me a position in leagues abroad. Whilst I'm open to working abroad, I'm sceptical of the people that have messaged me, and so for that reason: I haven’t gone ahead with anything just yet. It’s always difficult to trust an agent that you’ve never worked with before, and having seen some stuff during my playing career, it’s also perfectly understandable too. The best thing to do when an agent reaches out to you is to check their ‘mutual contacts’ or their ‘current clients’, and if there's anyone on either list that you know: ask them about their experience.

I’ll admit that I'm getting itchy feet about finding a better opportunity to expand my horizons, and I've been taking a lot more notice of vacant jobs around the globe in the past few weeks. Whilst I may not hold the required qualifications at the moment, I'm hungry to learn, and I’ll be undergoing the required coaching courses when possible. Whether or not that’s enough to convince clubs to give me a chance: your guess is as good as mine!

For now, I'm just going to keep trying to improve as a coach, and wait to see how things play out.

@Jack: Coaching youngsters is quite difficult, especially when it comes to having to deal with their parents, so maybe it's just that aspect of football that Drago isn't suited for. I think he'd love nothing more than to coach Lazio one day, but he's going to have to do a hell of a lot of work elsewhere in order to be considered by their board!

I’d decided to leave my role with Latina Calcio 1932, as I wanted to be the man making the decisions, rather than the one making the suggestions. Whilst I respect the hierarchy, and the need for it, I’d been feeling like I need to have that level of control in order to take my coaching career to the next level. I continued to do a bit of coaching with private academies in the Rome subdistricts, but I was also putting my name out and about a lot more actively to try and find a position with a new club.

I was open to going anywhere in the world: I'm not in a position to be choosy.

I’d been networking quite a lot more via social media with some ex-coaches of mine, along with former teammates, and one night: I had a call from a former coach. He’d had a club reach out to him about a position, and although he’d told them he wasn’t interested in it, he’d also told them he knew someone that would be. They’d trusted his opinion enough to agree to give me an interview. I was extremely thankful, and promised him to be ready for the interview.

A few days after his phone call, I received confirmation of the interview via email, with it to be conducted via Zoom. I’d made sure to clean up my appearance, as well as my surroundings, and asked not to be interrupted for a few hours. I was somewhat nervous, but it was that nervousness that comes via excitement, and I just wanted to do what I could to convince the club that I was the right man to take them forward again. I’d been reading up on the club, had watched as much footage of their games as I possibly could, and felt like I’d be able to give them a clear picture on how I planned to achieve the goals that the club has, as well as the goals that I personally have.

Their timekeeping had been impeccable, and they called at the exact moment that they'd said they would. It’s silly, but it’s something that I place great importance on, so we were off to a great start. After a few minutes of ‘small talk’ where we checked on each other’s wellbeing, it was time to get down to business, and I felt a surge of adrenaline as we began to talk things over.

The goals that the club have are realistic for the position that they're currently in, but the thing that I'm most excited by is the fact that they know their squad requires a complete rebuild, and due to that: they're willing to back their new manager in the transfer market. I told them the types of players that I feel would be suitable for a rebuild, along with the tactics that I wanted to use, and how the two things could go hand in hand.

We talked for close to 2-hours by the time we finished the Zoom call, and I felt exhausted by it all. We were both on the same page about the direction we wanted to take the club in, though they were honest enough to let me know that they had 2 other managers that they still planned to talk to. I felt that I’d done enough to convince them that if they couldn’t get their primary target: I was worth considering.

Over the next 7-days, I kept glancing at my phone and refreshing my email account, in the hopes that I’d hear any form of ‘result’ from the interview. I was also tracking managerial appointments via certain websites, as well as keeping an eye on Twitter: I was basically a detective by this stage! There was nothing regarding the club, though I was shocked to see that two high profile managers had taken positions at other clubs within the league. I only hoped that they were the people that I’d been competing with for the role, and continued to keep my eyes peeled for any other opportunities that might open up.

Finally: I heard back from the club.

As I read through their email, a smile spread across my face, and I quickly clicked on the ‘attachments’ that the email possessed. Everything looked right to me, and the contract was something that I felt was extremely acceptable. They’d also included accommodation and transport in the contract, which was great, as it mean that there'd be a couple of headaches that I wouldn’t have to deal with. With that being said: I’d have to organize my international driver’s license.

I'm pleased to announce that I've accepted the offer from Team Wellington to become their next manager!

I’d signed a 2-year contract with the club worth €3,500/month and sent it back to them, with the club then jumping through a few hurdles in order for me to be able to travel from Italy to New Zealand. Thankfully: it hadn’t taken long to get sorted. 3-days after signing the contract, I was saying my goodbyes to my family, and making my way to the airport for my next adventure. I was excited to say the least, and it was the ‘unknown’ that had me most excited.

There's been a bit of a negative reaction to my appointment from some sections of the New Zealand football scene, with a few pundits claiming that by appointing me, Team Wellington have waved a ‘white flag’ for this season, and will be scaling back their expectations in future seasons.

I can confirm that this isn't true in the slightest, and it’s reflected in the ‘club vision’ that club has given me, as shown below:

There's plenty of reasons for the fans to be excited in my opinion, and with the club currently having no players on its books: we’re going to be making quite a few announcements in the near future. I’ll be required to quarantine on my arrival in New Zealand, and my 14-days in quarantine will be spent making contact with potential signings for the club. Whilst I’ll be restricted in my movements, club officials won’t be, and I'm hopeful that we can make a strong statement early on into my tenure that the club is moving in the right direction.

Based on some of the players that I've already talked to: people will be eating their words in no time.

I’ve left the chairperson in control of all staff recruitment at the moment, as we need to build that up too, though I’d asked him to organize a contract for former New Zealand international Che Bunce to come in as my assistant-manager, who agreed to take the job. Whilst he may not have been the best candidate available, I do like the fact that he has international experience, and I feel it may be something that shows a statement of intent to any potential signings. Che had a successful playing career, and although his coaching career hasn’t been at the same level: he's still someone that I feel will be good to have around the club.


Apart from Che, I believe there's been contracts offered to a number of other staff members in a host of different roles, and I look forward to being able to talk things over with them. It’s crucial that we all get on the same page from the offset, so that we can achieve our goals on the pitch.

There’s 17-days until our next fixture, which means that I’ll have only had 3-days to meet the players in-person beforehand. Whilst it might not be ideal, we’re not going to make any excuses, and everyone involved with the club needs to embrace the hard work that’s headed our way. It’s not going to be easy to overtake the juggernaut that is Auckland City, and I'm under no illusions in that regard, but when you have the likes of Eastern Suburbs and Waitakere United throwing their weight about too: we’ll have our work cut out.

For now, I just need to continue to talk with players, convince them that a move to David Farrington Park is the right move to make, and we’ll go from there. When you consider how close we are in proximity to the Wellington Phoenix, I'm hopeful that we can pick up any of the players that they discard. If they're good enough for a professional club: I'm sure they’ll be good enough for us.

Long story short: I just need to endear myself to the fans, and show them that I'm the right man to lead their club.

@Tango: To be fair: it was an simple mistake to make! I'm sure Drago would love for Team Wellington to become an alternative club to support for fans that are disenchanted by the Wellington Phoenix, so the pressure is on him to make that happen.

I've been thinking of how I’d like us to set up tactically since I’d accepted the job, and I’d been recruiting players that would specifically fit into that tactic. I've been watching so much footage of players in the past few days, and I'm full of confidence that our potential signings are going to help take the club to another level. If we’re able to get them all, I'm pleased that we should be a side that can play a good brand of football from the offset, and we’ll be looking to implement a system that’ll see us dominate the possession stats most weeks.

I also realized that I need to recruit a coaching staff that I feel will be able to convey my ideas to my players, so I’ve now taken over control of the recruitment of our coaches. For the recruitment and medical departments, I'm still fine with the chairperson taking control of it. I've been talking with a lot of people, and getting a ‘feel’ for them, and I know that I need to take a lot of care with who I bring is, as I don’t want anyone that will potentially stab me in the back.

For now: back to tactics!

The tactic that we’ll be using this season is this:

I feel like it’ll give us the perfect balance of attacking prowess and defensive stability, and I think that it’ll also be quite straightforward to recruit players to fit into the tactic too. We’re also allowed to sign as many foreign players as we like, although I’d like us to be a club that signs the best talent from surrounding nations in Oceania, rather than taking an ‘easy’ option to recruit players from Europe or South America. Other clubs in the league do that, and that’s fine, but I feel we’d be more respected by the region if this was the way that we choose to operate.

I've been told that we've now agreed terms with a few players and staff, and they’ll weigh up their options over the next few days before letting us know if they’ll be coming onboard, and I'm hopeful that they don’t take too long. We’re running an uphill battle at the moment to get back on track, but when I look at the list of the players that we've agreed terms with: I'm very positive about our chances. A good number of them have played at a strong level, are still capable of doing so, whilst a few of them are young enough where they could be great players for this club for the next decade.

If we can bring them in, and have a few strong showings early on: I'm hoping it brings the fans back to the stadium. We’re averaging just 369 fans a game at the moment, and when you consider that our capacity is 2,000 and tickets are just €6: the fans are showing their displeasure with the performances this season by staying away. With only 3 games left this season, time is running out for us, so we need our performances to convince the fans that next season will be a big improvement.

@mgriffin2012: Yeah, Team Wellington is a great spot for Drago to begin his managerial career. They've had some relative success over the years, but nothing at the level of the likes of Auckland City!

I have to give credit to everyone at the club for their efforts whilst I was in quarantine, and thankfully: we got a lot done. In the past week we've managed to bring in, and announce, the signings of 15 players, and although we’ll still need to bring in a few more new faces: we’re on much more solid ground now. Like I've said previously, we only have 3 games left this season, plus the playoffs [if we qualify!], so bringing these lads in now is purely just a case of getting them prepared for next season.

So far, it’s only players that were free agents that have been able to come in, but we’re also in discussions with a fair few lads under contract elsewhere about signing here when the transfer window opens in July. There's so many Kiwi lads that are playing in the lower rungs of Australian football at the moment, so if we can get them back here: that can only be seen as a good thing for New Zealand football in my opinion.

There hadn’t been many goalkeepers of the standard we required in my opinion, so our first signing was the short-term signing of Divikesh Deo as our first-choice goalkeeper. Divikesh has spent the entirety of his career in the lower leagues of New Zealand football, and I feel he should be able to do a solid enough job until the transfer window opens, and we can bring in a proper first-choice goalkeeper to the club.

His understudy will be youngster Nick Milner, who’d been a free agent since leaving Western Suburbs at the end of the 2019-20 season. Nick’s spent time in Australia with the Brisbane Roar, so there's the belief that he has the potential to be a solid goalkeeper in the future, and at just 21-years old: he has plenty of time to develop still. We won’t put any unnecessary pressure on him just yet: we’ll take things slowly with him.

There's been quite a bit of buzz surrounding our other defensive signings, but in my opinion, the signing of Liam Higgins is the pick of the bunch in my opinion. Liam had a short spell with the club during the 2015-16 season, but has spent the majority of his career in the Australian and English lower leagues since. We’ve brought him back to New Zealand following a stint with Staines Town, and I feel he could be a key cog in getting our defensive frailties sorted.

Also joining the club was the likes of George Stanger, Cory Brown, and Finn O’Connor. George and Cory are both solid signings, and have a reasonable amount of first-team experience, whilst Finn is a youngster that has recently spent time playing college football in the United States. If I'm honest, I’ll be signing a few more defenders in the off-season, so a lot of the lads that have signed [so far] will basically be on an ‘extended trial’ until the end of the season.

Midfield is where we made our biggest signing, with Matthew Ridenton signing a 2-year deal with the club. He has a lot of A-League experience under his belt, having played 115 games [6 goals] across 4 stints at 3 different clubs. He’s always seemingly been utilized as a bit of a ‘utility’ player, but I'm looking for him to be the midfield engine, and I feel like he could be a crucial player for us in that box-to-box role. It’s a statement signing, and it has people talking.

It’d been difficult to find the right players for the way I wanted us to play, but we eventually announced the arrivals of Jackson Brady, Ernesto López, Luka Prelevic, Teraï Bremond, Seth Clark, and Michael McGlinchey. There's a great mix of ‘experience’ and ‘youth’ within those names, and although we'll still need to strengthen again in the off-season, I'm pleased that we were able to bring all of them to the club: especially McGlinchey.

It’d been extremely difficult to find a striker that I feel can be relied on, and we eventually settled for Tahj Minniecon, who has signed a short-term deal until the end of the season. Tahj has top flight experience in Australia and the Philippines, and fits in with our ‘Oceania’ theme by having a Samoan passport too. I'm intrigued to see how he’ll fare, but I'm doubtful that he'll be the player that finds the back of the net on a regular basis.

The only other striker to sign for the club was Thomas Drillien, with him a free agent after leaving Central United at the conclusion of the 2020-21 season. Thomas has spent time in the United States in the past, playing college football, and he’s also been around the youth national team set-ups too. He’ll go into the starting-11 until the end of the season, but it’s no secret that I feel we need to sign at least 2 more strikers: maybe 3.

It’s a lot of moves that we’ve made, and I understand that these things can take time to click, but we’ve informed all the lads that we don’t have the benefit of that time: people expect us to start getting results. Despite only just arriving, I feel we’re all under the microscope at the moment, and there’ll always be more people willing to criticize you than to praise you. We’ve been working hard on the training pitch to instil the brand of football that we’re going to look to play from now on, and you can see from the playing group: they're happy with the way I'm asking them to play.

There's plenty of teams in New Zealand that are happy to just lump it long and hope for the best: not us. We’re going to set targets and ‘markers’ on how we will judge our performances, and one of them will be to maintain possession. With that being said: it can’t be ‘pointless’ possession either. We need to be moving the ball with a purpose, not just holding onto it because we don’t know what to do, so it’s crucial that the likes of Matthew Ridenton, Michael McGlinchey, and Luka Prelevic can thread those passes through for our strikers to get an attempt on goal.

There's no doubt we’ve taken a risk: now we need to find out if it was worth it.

@Tango: You're exactly right. The aim should always be to build the team around the local lads, with a few foreign players thrown in to take the team to the "next level" so to speak. To have an over-reliance on players from abroad would be a risky strategy in a financial sense, and Drago would never want to leave the club in a worse state than when he arrived!