Carli ready to make his mark at BNFC

New Benoni Northerns Football Club (BNFC) first-team coach Alessandro Carli has promised the Northerns fans an entertaining brand of football and a team that will play with passion.

Carli, who also coaches the reserves team, took over the reins following the sacking of Andrew Kelly after their 4-1 derby loss to Old Bens on June 29.

Kelly’s dismissal also follows a string of inconsistent results in the Eastern Super League.

The coach has faith in the team but acknowledged he will need time to turn things around, especially getting the players up to speed with the direction he wants the team to take.

“I’m ready for the challenge. We have a good squad and with the quality we have, we should be high up in the league,” said Carli.

“I want to be in the top three and I want to do it for the club and committee who have showed faith in me. I need a week or two and this team will be firing.”

The 25-year-old pleaded for patience. He is confident he can change his team’s fortunes in the same way coach Enrique Juanas-Uriol did when he spearheaded the club’s turnaround in the 2022 season, which resulted in them narrowly missing out on the league title.

“I can change it around. We need slight tweaks. The guys need to get fitter and we have to work on their mental strength. They want to play the brand of football I want to bring. The one thing they must know is that the work rate to play my style is big,” he said.

Having proven his tactical astuteness in the reserves side with his approach that involves advancing play through precise passes executed by the goalie and defenders, manipulating play in tight spaces and effective ball control and accurate passing, he admitted it’s going to take a while before the results could start coming.

“It’s going to take us a couple of weeks but I’ve already seen the positive signs. We’ve got to change the entire philosophy. I saw in our previous games that the long and second balls were the philosophy but I like to play out from the back.

“I’ve always looked at it like a chess game. You attack one side of the field and get your opponents to commit their defence there. You then attack the other side.

“I like my goalkeeper to be almost the third defender with my centre-backs split and one of my wingbacks coming to assist in midfield. The holding midfielders should always receive from the defence. You’ll see a lot of the ball on the ground and playing our number 10 more,” he said.

Carli played football for Northerns from the juniors to seniors. He pursued coaching in 2021 after an injury-plagued career and has a UEFA C and B coaching licence.

He did his apprenticeship at the Woodlands International Football Academy (WIFA) and Superstars Academy in Boksburg in 2022 before re-joining Northerns last year.

“It’s about getting ourselves back on track. It’s going to be difficult but it’s achievable. For the reserves, we’ll continue pushing for league honours,” Carli said.

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