Triple Sergio Melta medal winner Simon Catanzaro and his family are leaving everything behind in a bid to realise a dream in Spain
BARCELONA legend and Adelaide United’s maiden A-League championship winning boss Guillermo Amor has influenced a soccer mad family to pack up and leave Adelaide for the Catalan hills.
BARCELONA legend and Adelaide United’s maiden A-League championship winning boss Guillermo Amor has influenced a soccer-mad family to pack up and leave Adelaide for the Catalan hills.
Simon Catanzaro, his wife Nadine and young son Lewis are leaving everything behind for a dream.
Catanzaro wants to explore coaching in Spain where some of the globe’s best mentors like Amor’s ex Barca teammates Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique and Spain’s FIFA World Cup winning boss Vicente Del Bosque were created.
The three-time Sergio Melta medal winner and former Birkalla coach will be renting a home in the village Sant Culgat del Valles where Lewis is enrolled in international school.
“I’ve got to get my foot in the door somewhere,’’ Catanzaro said who was inducted into Football Federation SA’s Hall of Fame in 2016.
“Guillermo thought very highly of me when I was an assistant coach at Adelaide United’s NPL teams, I’ve got a good relationship with his son (Guille who now plays for Barca) and I went to watch him play when I was in Barcelona last year.
“I would have no hesitation in getting some advice from Guillermo.”
May Day is the expected departure date after Catanzaro, 37, does one more reconnaissance mission in Spain in December before the family settles in long term next year.
“We have put a lot of plan and preparation into this, this dream has been happening for the last two or three years,’’ Catanzaro said.
“We just had to wait for Sarah (Nadine’s daughter) to finish year 12 and she is about to do that, she went to St Peter’s girls’ school and is exploring opportunities to go to university in Melbourne next year.
“Nadine has been pushing for me to explore my opportunities. Especially here in Australia, in coaching it’s just a merry-go round, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s the reality of it.
“It’s never going to be full-time, so I thought why not get the coaching badges out of the way and just try to learn and explore opportunities through Europe.
“We love Barcelona and it’s just a fantastic opportunity, I’m a realist too, I’m not going there with my chest out, I’m going there to build relationships.”
The former Northern Spirit midfielder was discovered by current Socceroos boss Graham Arnold when he was in charge of the club which briefly injected life into the now defunct NSL in 1999.
Catanzaro rated Arnold as a huge influence in his career as has takes a long leave of absence from his job as a public servant at Centrelink where he regularly dealt with prison releases.
As Catanzaro explores coaching opportunities in the men’s and women’s game in Spain, Nadine will be searching for work.
She was recently made redundant from her project implementation job at Coca-Cola Amatil.
“My wife is organised, she has the Ikea (furniture retail store) card so the day we arrive in May, we’ll have all of our furniture arriving too,’’ Catanzaro said.