Aloisi unfazed by baptism of fire

Aloisi forged a long career in Belgium, Italy, England and Spain before returning home in 2007 to finish playing in the A-League.

He is one of only a few Australians to have played in a FIFA World Cup, a FIFA Confederations Cup and an AFC Asian Cup.

He is also one of only two Socceroos players to have scored in all three tournaments. The other is Harry Kewell.

Aloisi, whose winning penalty and subsequent semi-strip against Uruguay in 2005 will go down as one of the most enduring images of Australian sport, is now retired as a footballer.

And at the end of the last A-League championship he was given the reins of Melbourne Heart's A-League team after he spent a season coaching its youth side.

It's going to be Aloisi's baptism of fire in the dog-eat-dog world of senior coaching

So is he nervous or does he feel burdened by the big responsibility entrusted him by Heart?

"Not at all, I've got to start some time," he said.

"I'm not overawed by the job because I'm confident about what the club and I are doing as a club.

"We are trying to put across to our players how we want to play, which will be very similar to what we have been doing the past two seasons.

"We will just try to get better at it and make sure we keep improving as a team.

"We've been going in pre-season for six weeks and we play our first trial next Friday night against a Victorian team.

"I'm excited and I can't wait for the season to start now."

Aloisi, who was scoring goals for Heart less than two years ago, said he was shocked by his quick elevation to Heart's senior coaching job.

"If you had asked me in 2010 that I would be coaching a first team in the A-League two years later I would have said 'you've got to be crazy'," he said.

"Last season I was in charge of the youth team and I think because I've been here since the start and I know the club very well that was a good foundation for me.

"John van't Schip has done a great job here along with Jesper Olsen and Ante Milicic while John Didulica makes life very easy for me.

"So it's been an easy transition in that sense.

"Having said that, I would not have been ready to take up a role like Ange Postecoglou has at Melbourne Victory, for example, where he has to do everything.

"I'm coming into a role where everything was virtually put in place for me and my job is to coach and get the best out of my players.

"And, to be honest, I don't think it has been that hard in that sense ... it's going well ... but we haven't played a game yet."

Aloisi refuted suggestions that, as a young coach, he was running the risk of being outsmarted by more experienced coaches like, for example, Postecoglou, John Kosmina, Ian Ferguson, Gary van Egmond and Graham Arnold ... a 36-year-old rookie taking on the sharks of the A-League.

"Who are the sharks?" he asked.

"I'm a great believer in the players that you have.

"And I'm confident in the players we've got.

"There is also that little thing about football knowledge which I'm pretty confident about, too.

"They talk about Ange and other top coaches, which is fair enough.

"Ange did a brilliant job at Brisbane Roar and their football was the best I've seen in Australia.

"But without Thomas Broich, Besart Berisha and a couple of others would he have done as well? I'm not sure.

"That's why I'm saying that big players do make a big difference and I'm lucky enough to have a guy like Fred who can make all the difference. I've also got experienced men in my squad."

Aloisi said he would draw on the best qualities of some top coaches he has had the privilege of working with throughout his career.

"My coach at Osasuna, Javier Aguirre from Mexico, was the best I've worked under," he said.

"He had a great knowledge about the game and made it easy for us to understand what tactics he wanted to use.

"He was just a great man manager and knew how to get the best out of his players.

"Osasuna are a small club and Javier had nowhere near the money Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atletico Madrid had to spend on players yet we always managed go do well in La Liga and stay in it because he was smart at tactics.

"I was lucky enough to work under a few top managers. Terry Venables was good with players and very good tactically, while Guus Hiddink, of course, everybody knows about."

And will John Aoisi be a hands-on type of coach or more of a manager?

"I am a little bit of both," he said.

"There are times when you need to be hands on but on other occasions you have to supervise and delegate to your assistant coaches.

"That's why you have to trust them and carry the workload with them because if you try to do too much it can be bad for you."

Heart chief executive Scott Munn said he was confident that the club had made the right choice of coach.

"John came across as a man with a clear vision about what he wanted to do, particularly with the younger generation," Munn said.

"His clear understanding of the way forward for the club plus his wealth of experience resonated with the selection panel."