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Jeff Hopkins is the Head Coach of Melbourne Victory Football Clubs Liberty A-League Women’s side. Jeff started as a professional player in the UK playing for the likes of Fulham, Crystal Palace and Reading FC and after a short period winning the treble in the Malaysian Premier League, he made his move to Australia to start his official coaching journey. Jeff has held head coaching positions with the Gippsland Falcons in former NSL, QAS, Brisbane Roar FC, Melbourne Victory FC and the Afghanistan women’s national team to name a few. In this episode Jeff shares the highs and lows of working in one of the most competitive and unforgiving roles in high performance sport. Despite challenging times Jeff has been able to forge a long and successful career becoming one of the most respected, humble and successful coaches in women’s A-League history.   


Highlights from the episode…

• Being the youngest of 6, how Jeff was influenced into the game of football. 
• After a successful professional playing career in the UK Jeff was offered an opportunity to play in Malaysia.
• Jeff speaks about the importance of having the support of your family when making decisions to move abroad in the sports industry. 
• Jeff and I talk about the culture of former professional players receiving preferential treatment in the world of coaching, that others may not receive. Which is not mutually exclusive to coaching roles in sport. 
• After a successful playing career “What did you have to give up as a player to be a good coach?”
• Jeff and I discuss how the skills that got you here may not be the skills that take you to the next level. 
• The value of empowering your staff and people you work with to maximise your own success.
• Jeff shares a period of 2-3 years doubting whether he was doing the right thing in chasing his dream of being a head coach in professional sport.
• After initially receiving an opportunity in Brisbane to work with some of South Korea’s elite footballers he got offered an opportunity to work for Queensland Academy of Sport. 
• Jeff shares his transition into women’s football and what he had to quickly learn to become successful when working with elite women’s footballers. 
• How Jeff eventually got a role with the Brisbane Roar FC and his experience working across their Youth, Women’s and Men’s A-League programs. 
• Having had success at the Brisbane Roar winning several championships and premierships with the club he was then made redundant. 
• After a tumultuous first season with the Melbourne Victory FC finishing last in his first season he then went on to win another 2 championship’s and 1 premiership in his close to 9 years as the Head Coach of the Women’s team. 

People mentioned: 

• Phil Parkinson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Parkinson
• Ki Sung-yueng: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ki_Sung-yueng

 

 Jeff Hopkins contact details:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-hopkins-721920123/?originalSubdomain=au
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hopkins

Host: Luis Resa

Contact me on:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-resa-a975196b/
• Email: [email protected]

Thanks for listening and please leave a review. If you would like more information on anything mentioned in this episode simply send me an email.