From this week's Flying Kiwis.
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wellingtonphoenixsoccerschoolSIGNING | Congrats to WPSS elite school graduate @_maxmata_ who has signed a professional contract for @gc_zuerich_offiziell ?⚽️?
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rikichet_fitness
Heritage? Tahiti? Tongan? Awesome news!!
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benmata98
@rikichet_fitness Cook Island Maori
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rikichet_fitness
@benmata98 that's great news!!!
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kidrey__
blessings on blessings ?
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t.proffit
Great news @_maxmata_ ???
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Max Mata: “I feel I’m settling in well but I think a lot of that has to do with the attitude I came here with. I was determined that I was going to show everybody here that just because I come from New Zealand it doesn’t mean I won’t be on the pitch ahead of them and I think about that every day. I know that’s exactly their mindset too. I have found the players are very friendly off the pitch which is good and I am making some good relationships with team mates which is important… My main goal is that I am going to be the hungriest player every day in the gym and on the pitch. I believe if I can achieve that then my footballing career will be successful as I will have no regrets. Also being a striker I want to score as many goals as I can and a goal I have in my mind is to score the most goals in the league for the 2nd half of the season.”
Nothing quite like the feeling of seeing a kiwi player make the leap to professional footy, particularly when it’s at a club with a fair bit of prestige like this one. GC Zurich, of course, being one of the teams that Wynton Rufer built his legend at back in the day. Mata trialled with the club in the middle of last year and the 18 year old was one of the more notable missing names from the latest Premiership after doing some fine things with Eastern Suburbs the season before. Suggests he had something lined up and here we go, bloody excellent.
GC Zurich are currently bottom of the table in Switzerland so they could use some help, though it remains to be seen if he’ll go straight into the first team as a teenager. Not always the way it works for young kiwis overseas but this is an exciting one. For a bit of context, Marco Rojas’ best spell in Europe came playing for FC Thun in this same division.