Wolves ready to take next step
Lucio Ianiero loves nothing more than to see his players enjoy themselves.
The head coach of the St. Catharines Club Roma Wolves of the League1 Ontario Women’s Premier Division feels it is important to let players display their individual talents.
“There needs to be a sense of enjoyment which I think today kids are over-coached,” he said. “You see them and they’re very robotic. I’m not just saying throw a ball out there and just tell them to go and play, there are some strict adherences they need to stick to in terms of a specific style of play.
“It is different in terms of asking the girls to play a specific way and that is to bring enjoyment back to the game. The wins are wins but this isn’t the World Cup final or qualifying for Champions League. It’s almost like a re-wiring in the brains of the girls because they have been taught a certain way and it’s very evident.”
Ianiero admitted it’s not always a simple process to reprogram the way players think.
“Keep in mind we don’t have these girls for 12 months a year, we only have them for a short time so that the rewiring will take a long time for some of these girls,” he said. “They are coming from D1 schools where winning is important. They do whatever they need to do to get the W and sometimes if it’s an ugly win, oh well.
“It’s kind of tricky, but we’re insistent on that.”
Ianiero feels the more a player has the ball, the better.
“From my experience as a player, you love to have the ball at your feet. A player has a ball less than two minutes out of a 90-minute game. It’s like the ball is on fire and you done want your foot to catch on fire. I don’t mind you possessing the ball. If you lose it, then fix it and get it back.
“You don’t have to be a one-touch or two-touch player all the time. We’re just asking them to think through certain scenarios of the game and then try and find the best option. I don’t want to be an X-box coach and tell them I must do this or that when they get the ball. We can get any 18 kids out there to do that.”
Ianiero, a 56-year-old St. Catharines native, has a long and varied soccer background playing in the Canadian Soccer League, American Professional Soccer League, Canadian National Soccer League, National Professional Soccer League, and the Canadian Professional Soccer League.
He joined Roma two years ago when the Wolves League1 women’s team was launched and loves the history of soccer at the Roma.
“The most important thing is that any player feel a sense of belonging at the club. Roma has been around since 1967 and it has a long standing history. Just like a high school or university, there needs to be a sense of pride representing that club or team,” he said. “The kids need to recognize that sense of history at Roma and the many people who put that jersey on for them and build for them what basically is there for them now.”
The Premier women’s team is coming off a 6-9-3 record last season and has been relegated to the Championship Division for the upcoming season.
“Our goal is to always try and win the championship,” Ianiero said. “Our goal is going to be to try and get back into top tier. We have to finish first so it’s a tough road ahead. We have some good teams in our division.”
Tryouts are underway for both women’s teams — long time local coach Rob Lalama is back to coach the Reserve Team — and Roma technical director of soccer Davide Massafra feels the club is poised to continue to grow their women’s program.
“We have a good group of young players coming from the U16,” he said. “We have an amazing coaching staff. We established the program two years ago and we don’t want to give up. We want to make the program as successful as we can.”
Massafra feels Roma is well equipped to develop players for a future Canadian women’s professional league.
“We are going to have very soon in Canada a League 1 professional women’s league. And League 1 wants to be the base for those girls to make the jump. Finally a venue for girls to play pro soccer in Canada. We want to encourage the players in the Niagara Region who really love the game, don’t give up, keep training and playing here with our staff.”
Roma will be conducting tryouts for the Premier team during Christmas break. Check https://www.instagram.com/clubromasoccer/for more details.
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