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When The Warm-up asked Melbourne Victory's new goalkeeper Danny Vukovic if he felt like he was now at the biggest club in Australia, he said: "I don't feel like it - I know I am."
That's how they roll at Victory.
"It certainly is the biggest club, no doubt in my mind," Vukovic said. "We've got over 24,000 members (it has crept past 25,000 since The Warm-up spoke to him) and smashed every other club out of the park.
"Everything the club does, it just continually raises the bar and I think every other club is striving to be like Melbourne Victory.
"It is a wonderful club and I still pinch myself to think that I'm a Melbourne Victory player now."
Vukovic said the feeling hit him as soon as he joined Victory, the reigning A-League premier and champion, from Perth Glory. He started his A-League career at Central Coast Mariners.
"I could see from my first day it's an extremely professionally-run club," he said. "The derbies, the rivalries the club has, no other club has this many big games in a season, so it is a great thing to be a part of.
"I'm certainly looking forward to that first Melbourne derby (in round two). I can't imagine what it's going to be like at a packed stadium for a Melbourne derby, or a Big Blue or the rivalry with Adelaide that we get first-up.
"It's going to be amazing and it's one of the main reasons I signed with the club, to be able to play in those games."
Doctor Football
Dear Doctor Football,
I can't stop scoring goals. It's like every time I play, I score. Even in my sleep, I'm scoring all the time. But there's something missing, I haven't got a decent goal-scoring celebration. I don't want to go near the corner-post, Timmy and Archie have got that covered. Do you have any suggestions?
Aaron, Melbourne.
Dear Aaron,
My advice is don't come up with a celebration of your own, because if it falls flat you'll only have yourself to blame. Do what most players do, pinch one from someone else. I've enclosed a video with a few examples from those crazy cats at FC Stjarnan, in Iceland, for you to consider.
"The fisherman" is an absolute classic, but to make it work requires a teammate prepared to play the part of the fish, bouncing along the rocks as you reel it in. It's not the most becoming role. You may have to stump up with some cash to convince someone to do that.
What did you do on your holidays?
When you're 21 years old, like Andrew Hoole is, and you're about to leave Newcastle for the big smoke in Sydney, it's time for a last hurrah with your mates.
"I just hung out with friends and spent time with the family, because I knew that after the off-season break I'd be coming down to Sydney and I wouldn't be seeing them nearly as much as I would if I was still living at home," Hoole told The Warm-up.
"I also went down to Melbourne with some friends for a week and had a good time there. I've been back to Newcastle a little bit since I joined Sydney, just whenever I've been able to find time in the busy schedule, but it's going to get harder to do that now the season is starting."
The word
Let me tell you a story about Joe Caletti, who captained Australia's Under-17 team, the Joeys, throughout its qualifying campaign for the FIFA Under-17 World Cup, and flew out with the squad on Wednesday for the big event in Chile from 17 October to 8 November.
I was lucky enough to get the chance to coach him as an under 9s and 10s player at Castle Hill United in Sydney's north-west. Even luckier, I don't appear to have gotten in the way of his development!
The thing about Joe is that he desperately wants to succeed and be as good as he can be and he has always been that way. He's got the fire in the belly that you need.
Anyone who has coached kids knows that even in the better teams it is sometimes hard to keep them under control and concentrating because they are, after all, just kids. But all Joe ever wanted to do was train hard, follow instructions and do his best for the team.
The boys played in the under 9s grand final, back in the days when the 9s still played on a full field, and it went to fulltime and then the end of extra time without any goals. It then went to a penalty shootout and Joe missed his penalty. We lost the game.
Most kids will get over losing a match, even a grand final, very quickly, but Joe was inconsolable. He was the captain and afterwards he and the winning captain had to make speeches in front of all the parents. You could barely understand what Joe was saying because he was choking on tears.
I asked him before the Joeys flew out whether he remembered that game.
"Is that the one where I missed a penalty?" he said.
"I was kicking myself for that. I don't remember making a speech, I just remember being shattered. Football has been a passion with me from very early on and I guess it shows. I hate losing, I've always been like that."
Dedication
The Warm-up has trolled the birthday archives and discovered that October 8, the date of the A-League kick-off with the game between Western Sydney Wanderers and Brisbane Roar, was also the birth-date of the late, great Johnny Ramone, lead guitarist for The Ramones.
Older football fans will know who I'm talking about. Younger ones, google them. Better still, to get you up and about and in the mood for the start of the season, here are The Ramones with one of their punk-rock classics - Blitzkrieg Bop.
