South Melbourne midfielder Marcus Schroen did his chances of earning an A-League opportunity no harm when he capped off a stellar season with a match winning brace in yesterday’s NPL Grand Final.
Schroen was awarded the Jimmy Rooney medal for his man of the match effort against Oakleigh Cannons and the 22-year-old says he is eager to return to the national top flight.
“I had a little bit of interest last year when I spent a bit of time at Central Coast but last year was a bit of a comeback year after my second knee reconstruction and this year I tried to take it to the next level,” Schroen said. “We’ll wait to see what comes ahead in the next few weeks as there’s a few weeks until the A-League season comes and hopefully something comes along because I’ve definitely got the aspirations.”
Signing on from Hume City at the end of last year to return to South Melbourne where played at youth level, Schroen has also previously spent time at Melbourne Heart in the National Youth League in the 2013/14 season where was the leading goalscorer at the club with five goals.
He has also found goal-scoring form at the tail end of this season having scored five goals in his last five matches and has proved to be one of the signings of the year in NPL Victoria.
“When I knew I was joining or coming back to South Melbourne the reason I came was to win trophies,” he said. “I knew I was joining a special group and they are an amazing bunch of lads and I just hope we can move on to bigger and better things next year.”
The South Melbourne number 17 could’ve easily scored two goals late in the first half but was denied by the woodwork in each occasion, first striking the crossbar from a free-kick and then curling an effort onto the upright in stoppage time before the break.
“I thought especially towards the end of the first half we started to assert ourselves on the game.”
“They boys were great, they just kept telling me to keep on going and it’ll come and fortunately it did in the second half.”