By Jonty Ralphsmith
Mikey Rosa has been named Pakenham United skipper for 2025, ushering a new generation for the club.
Rosa has spent plenty of time playing under coach Dean Alburey, positioning him to be a conduit between the players and coaching staff
He will be assisted by co-vice captains Yaseen Laghmane and Omar Alshanqiti, player welfare representative Elias Yacoub and social cultural leader Ryan Woolf.
“We put it to the players to nominate their leadership group,” Alburey said.
“Mikey knows what the expectations are and he’ll help us to hold high standards.
“He leads by example and is one of the hardest working players every week.
“He brings energy and flair.
“Ryan was my captain at Dandy City in the past two years and has almost 200 games of experience at Dandy City so he has experience you can’t replace.
“As well as having NPL experience, Elias is one of those kindhearted guys who wants to see everyone bee happy so his role made sense because that’s where his heart lies.
“He’s someone the players can come to who understands the pressures of being a player.
“Yaseen and Omar are two young men who epitomise what we’re after on the pitch: a never-say-die attitude and determination to find a result even on a bad day.”
Rosa was, however, missing from Pakenham’s 1-0 loss to Mount Eliza in round 3, due to hamstring awareness.
It’s a disappointing result for the club, given it dominated the first half at Emil Masden Reserve, and fired off plenty of shots, but was unable to finish off its work.
It was an issue that also plagued Alburey’s side in round 1, though they were still able to emerge with the win.
“We dominated possession in the first 45 minutes and it looked like it would be a straight forward day but in the second half it became a scrappy match,” Alburey said.
“It was one of those ones where we did everything right except for scoring.
“We generated a lot of scoring opportunities we didn’t capitalise on and a lot of it was down to poor decision making in the final third.”
