#dean bouzanis | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aus-wnt · 3 years ago

Note

Could you post the article with Steph and Dean? Cant access it outside Australia

Steph Catley and Dean Bouzanis are chasing very different football dreams in London

One plays in the top tier. The other is living a fairytale in the lower leagues. It‘s not your average Aussie gap year in London, writes ADAM PEACOCK.

London expat life is a rite of passage for many Australian twentysomethings.

Scratch enough together to get to the English capital, work a little, play plenty, and come home with an empty wallet but life experience you can bank for life.

Steph Catley and Dean Bouzanis are living it right now. To a degree.

Both footballers, elite footballers, they wake up each day in their quiet little abode in St Albans, north London, and aim for perfection.

Forget weekends in Prague or Paris, both Catley and Bouzanis are loving life, and each other, experiencing moments as footballers they’ll look back on fondly.

For Catley, it’s turning out for Arsenal and matching it with Sam Kerr, and the rest of the greatest players on the planet, in the Women’s Super League.

For Bouzanis, it’s the helter-skelter life in England’s lower divisions for Sutton United, a club that has turned a floundering existence into a fairytale.

No weekend sessions at the Walkabout for this pair.

There’s no right way, or wrong way to meet someone.

Sure, the dream scenario to tell the grandkids is one swept the other off their feet at a fancy ball, catching each other’s eye mid-waltz. Or something like that.

Steph and Dean’s courtship was, shall we put it, more … modern.

“He slid into my DM’s,” says Steph.

In Dean’s defence, there’s a little more context.

In late 2016, both were playing for Melbourne City, but the men’s and women’s teams trained at different times and occupied different areas of the training base.

Steph did have a vague idea who Dean was, although he did blend in.

“At the time, it was him, Paulo Retre, Anthony Caceras and Michael Zullo. All these boys had the exact same haircut,” Steph continues. “All different heights, but all had that black wave with the short sides, they all looked identical!

“Didn’t know names, and didn’t watch them much,” says Steph, who then turns to Dean and bluntly continues, “To be honest I didn’t know who you were.”

That gets a laugh from both of them now, but thankfully at the time, Dean - not known for his lack of confidence - was none the wiser. He’d seen Steph play for City but didn’t know how to get to know her better, until one afternoon at a Melbourne shopping centre when fate intervened. Well, kind of.

It’s only fair they explain a big life event in their own words, complete with body language from their north London lounge room, how it all unfolded nearly six years ago.

Dean: “I was at Chadstone having lunch and she binned me!”

Steph laughs, but doesn’t disagree.

Steph: “I was waiting for a friend to finish work, had headphones, in [my] own little world, and I never saw him.”

Dean giggles, knowingly.

Dean: “I was actually a nervous wreck, didn’t approach her there. I had more confidence on Instagram.”

Steph nods.

Steph: “Later on he sends me a message on Instagram, ‘Thanks for binning me at Chadstone.’

Dean laughs out loud, and has nothing left to add.

Steph: “And that’s how we started talking. WHAT A CATCH, honestly!”

But does it matter how the first move came about? Probably not when their relationship is still going strong, helped by big career moves for both.

*****

Catley has come a long way since her debut as a 15 year-old for Melbourne Victory in 2009, when, as she puts it, “I was running around like a headless chook, no power in my legs, trying to cross!”

She is now one of the world’s premier left-sided defenders, at home either centrally or with more license to move forward from left-back.

In 2020, becoming weary of the 12 month calendar of playing in Australia and America, Catley decided to take the plunge, and said yes to an approach from Arsenal, one of the leading teams in England.

A little removed from the shyness of their initial hook-up, Bouzanis was only too happy to follow at the same time and organised a deal with Sutton United in London’s south.

“I’d been here before,” says Bouzanis, who was signed by Rafa Benitez at Liverpool when he was just 16. “So it was more important for Steph to be as settled as she could.”

She needed all the support she could get in her first few months at Arsenal when a bad calf injury was followed by a serious hamstring tear which required surgery. Catley played just six matches in that first season for Arsenal, split over three frustratingly short spells in September, December and then May. The painstaking rehab, requiring the patience of a monk, would have been a lot more difficult without Bouzanis there.

It was all worth it, because now she’s flying.

“It was a rough start but once I got healthy,” says Catley, “it’s just nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve grown so much as a player.

“You have to be at your best every day. I’m defending [brilliant Dutch striker] Vivianne Miedema every session. She’s either gonna make you look silly or you can be right on your game and stop her.

“Can’t switch off for a second, and that was new to me when I got here.”

Week in, week out, she’s playing against the best, whether it be Kerr at Chelsea – who recently “kicked the crap out of my knee. She said sorry” – or Europe’s elite in the Champions League.

“You’re flying into these games across Europe, playing home and away and I grew up dreaming about it. Pure football, intense, but exactly where I want to be.”

In late March, Catley’s Arsenal will play German giants Wolfsburg in the quarter-finals. Successful navigation will probably mean a semi-final meeting with reigning champions Barcelona.

Just how good are Barcelona?

Catley’s eyes widening at the question gives the answer away.

“They are THAT good,” she says. “Never felt anything like it, or seen anything like it. The way they keep the ball, move it, they are relentless.”

Big game after big game is on the horizon, and not just at club level. Catley knows the Matildas have wrongs to right. Her 100th appearance for Australia unfortunately coincided with a disappointing afternoon for the Matildas: the Asian Cup quarter final-exit to Korea Republic.

“It’s a tough one,” Catley reflects. “After we went out there was a lot of panic.

“There’s not panic in the camp or anything like that, we know what we are doing, we know the path we are on.

“I do understand the expectation. It’s on us for good reason. The better you get, the more comes. We should be doing better, we should be getting further in that tournament but I still don’t think we’re in crisis mode.”

The Matildas resume in April and Catley knows the scrutiny will ramp up with every passing moment toward next year’s Women’s World Cup.

If he’s allowed, Bouzanis will be front and centre cheering on.

But the way things are going, it’s doubtful.

*****

Before he and Catley hit London, Bouzanis had lived in England before, when Liverpool plucked him from high school in Sydney on a six-year contract.

“It was a rude shock when I came here,” he says, “living on my own, extremely homesick.”

He fought through the initial pain of missing family to knuckle down and break into Liverpool’s Premier League squad. He fondly remembers being with his visiting mum and seeing his squad number, 43, and name in the club shop.

He shared a training pitch and dressing room with legends, and learned especially from Steven Gerrard. “Mate, I love him. Un-bee-lievable. On the pitch, off the pitch, as a bloke, captain, leader, everything.”

After five years, though, he could feel his breakthrough wouldn’t come. So he moved on, bouncing between lower leagues in England, Holland, Greece, and of course the A League and Melbourne City where, around the time of winning the club’s first trophy, the 2016 FFA Cup, he Don Juan-ed his way into Catley’s heart, which led to a return to England.

Bouzanis has matured from the homesick teenager, although Catley does note, “I can’t imagine a teenage Dean living alone, [you] should have seen our house when I got back from the Asian Cup. A disaster!”

Thankfully the level of his football is better than the level of his domestication.

Bouzanis’ club Sutton United is a little club crashing through its ceiling, thriving in the relentless nature of English lower league football.

“I’ve played 95 games in 19 months. It's non-stop,” says Bouzanis, who was a big reason Sutton created history last season.

After 123 years playing ‘non-league’ – the divisions below England’s top four professional leagues – Sutton got themselves promoted. They play out of Gander Green Lane, squashed in London’s endless sprawl of suburbs towards the south, the 90 minute commute from home in St Albans more than worth it.

“It’s a club of fantastic people, great manager,” Bouzanis says. “Last year not one person expected us to win the league we did. Won promotion over 42 games, and we’ve got a chance to go up again.”

At the time of writing, Sutton are just four points off an automatic promotion spot to League One – unthinkable just 18 months ago for such a tiny club – plus in the semi-finals of the EFL Trophy.

Win that, and Sutton and Bouzanis are off to Wembley.

Another season like that in 2022-23 will mean he’ll be needed back in London for pre-season well before the Women’s World Cup starts in Australia.

It’s a hectic life. Little wonder there’s no time for sightseeing.

*****

Last weekend, with the Matildas electing not to play any games in the international window, Catley had the weekend off.

Bouzanis was away with Sutton playing in the north of England in Hartlepool, which in February, will all due respect, is not exactly Dubrovnik in August.

Catley stayed home. Bouzanis came home with a point.

The adventures are kept local. Afternoons off in St Albans, or the odd Thursday off exploring London. Other than that, it’s football and more football.

Which is fine. This is no Contiki Tour. The only taste they’ll have of a regular London expat experience is a week together somewhere in Europe once both season’s end in June.

Then it will be back into it, and neither Catley nor Bouzanis would have it any other way.

#Steph Catley #Matildas #AUSWNT #Arsenal WFC

19 notes · View notes