Hi, my name is Pav. I'm the Owner, Technical Director and Coach of the European Football Academy - Albany. We may have crossed paths in the last two years, whilst I was the Community Participation Officer for the Great Southern and Regional Lead at Football West. But for those who haven't met me yet, here is my story.

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My football career started as a 12-year old, and since then I've been a football player, assistant coach and head coach for junior, men's and women's teams across Europe.  Over the course of my life I've lived, worked and played football in Poland, Canada, Germany, England and Australia. 

 

Within my most recent role with Football West, I was based in Albany, increasing community participation, coaching regional state teams and providing coach education.  Within six months in the role I was promoted to Regional Lead, providing guidance to football development staff across regional WA. As Regional Lead I had the opportunity to travel all over WA, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the different regions and their unique requirements for development of the sport. During this time I met many great people and very talented players, however it became quickly obvious that opportunities in football were very limited, compared with those nearer to Perth.

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Prior to this, I was living and working in Koln, Germany, the home of Koln FC.  Holding a UEFA A Licence and qualified to coach up to top tier women's leagues and second tier men's leagues, I was Head Coach at SC West Koln for the semi-professional women's first team in the Regional Liga West (the fourth tier (of ten tiers) of German competition).  My biggest achievement in this role was building this team from 20 players up to 50 players, enabling the creation of a SC West Koln women's reserve team and luring some higher league players from the FC Koln team to sign with the club.  Before Covid halted the league, the first women's team was placed in the top half of the table having competed against clubs such as: Bayer Leverkusen, FC Koln, Fortuna Koln, Alemania Aachen and others.

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Before moving to Germany, I was living and working at Polonia Warsaw, one of the oldest professional football clubs in Poland.  Qualified with a UEFA B Licence, I was the Head Coach of the u-15 second boy's team, where I gained valuable coaching experience and had 4 of my players called up to the Polish and Finnish u-15 national teams, and well over 10 players called up for the state team.  This followed on from six months as Assistant Coach for the u-13 boys team under the guidance of one of the most prominent and well-respected junior football coaches in Poland.  He was by far the greatest influence in my football coaching journey and the lessons learnt from his past experience coaching the Polish national u-15 boys team, a Polish top division men's team and even the Polish striker Robert Lewandowski have proved invaluable.  

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Leading up to this I spent three years in Southampton, England, where I enrolled in university at the age of 37 to study a B.A. in Football Studies. During this time I began accruing Coaching Licences starting with Level 1, and was fortunate enough to work for Hampshire FA and Arsenal FC as a coach, amongst other clubs.  I graduated with the highest distinction of First Class with Honours.  

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Growing up, I played football at every given opportunity.  At the age of 19, I was offered football scholarships to three different universities in the US.  However, circumstances and a long-held dream of playing professional football in Europe meant that this wasn't the path my football career was to eventually take. 

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With all of this experience behind me, and with my understanding of the needs of regional players, I have decided to venture out on my own to create an Academy and training plan, the likes of which are very rare in Australia.

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I hope that you will be compelled to put your trust in my experience and knowledge of football, to help develop your child to the best that they can be. Feel free to have a look at my experience below or to click the Linkedin button for a more detailed outline.