Jets men - Apostolos Stamatelopoulos

Jets striker on winning major awards and future

Transcript

00:00 What's the next step then? How do you become a team that's consistently not just competing against these guys but beating them?

00:06 Well, I think you know for us it was we have a very young squad and a lot of that came down to

00:13 managing the game and experience and now that a lot of the boys have got that under their belt and you saw it

00:20 you can come towards the back end of the season which was great but

00:24 hopefully they can bring that experience into next season and we can win from the start.

00:29 You've scored 17 goals in the season, a record, I mean there's going to be interest from overseas.

00:34 Do you just wait until that comes? I know you have an ambition to go overseas again but do you think you need another year in the A-League?

00:41 Or is it a case of seeing what happens in the next month? Where's your thought process on that?

00:45 Well at the moment I'm contracted here so for me I just take it as that and if something comes up that

00:52 you know the club are happy with, I'm happy with, we'll see.

00:56 But at the moment I'm contracted here and that's where my head's at.

01:00 The next two months is about making a nursery mate or is it about having a rest?

01:04 What's the next month look like for you?

01:08 Well we've already started on the nursery, ticked a couple boxes on that but

01:12 next two months go home, see family, we haven't been able to do a lot of that this season so

01:17 just get back to Adelaide, see grandparents, parents, cousins, everyone and reconnect there.

01:23 In terms of football here, I know you always said if I'm playing consistently I knew I could do this.

01:29 Was there a point in the season where you went, wow I've scored six goals in eight games or

01:34 I need to do more of this? What was the turning point for you?

01:38 The Strikers, they live on confidence. Once you score four or five you think you're going to score 20. Was that the case?

01:44 I mean yeah I had a little patch there towards the end of the season where I went four games without scoring and I mean

01:51 it's going to happen and yeah confidence is a major part of it but like you said I mean I've always

01:58 known that I could do it and if I can play consistently, if I can stay injury free I back myself again to do it next season.

02:05 With the AFC stuff, when do you think that will come to a crunch period?

02:08 Do you think you'll know what you're going to do by the time your baby's born or do you think?

02:12 To be honest I'm not sure, 100% I have no clue so just keeping my mind on this off-season,

02:21 taking a break from football for a little bit and just seeing my family.

02:25 But obviously if you're here you've got confidence this game can potentially win a championship

02:29 whether it's next year or the year after. Sorry what was that?

02:33 If you're all being well and you are here, from what you've seen this year the sprouts are there that you can win a

02:38 championship whether it's next year or the year after. It's not like you want to be lured to a big club.

02:43 No, no I've said before in the media I'm staying here, I'm not going to any other ALE club.

02:49 Me and my wife, we're settled here, we like it here, we like the coaching staff, we like all the players.

02:54 We're very happy so definitely I think this back-ended season has proven to us that we can do it

03:01 and if we take that same momentum into next season for sure we can do it.