15 year old Coerver Elite student, Yannick Martinoli has been offered a place within the Under 16 squad at Grasshopper Club Zurich in Switzerland.
Following the devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, Yannick and his family were forced to relocate to Auckland and settled in the suburb of Pakuranga where Yannick attended Pakuranga College and also played for local club team Fencibles United AFC.
The annual Glasgow Rangers soccer camp held at Riverhills Park, Fencible United’s home ground, Yannick fought off stiff competition to be selected from 100 boys and girls and invited to Glasgow to trial with the current Scottish Premier League Champions. He is one of two players selected by Rangers following a New Zealand wide search.
Yannick left New Zealand on 17th September 2011 to embark on his European trials starting in Switzerland where he spent 4 weeks training with Grasshopper Club Zurich prior to visiting Rangers.
During his visit to Scotland, Yannick was interviewed pitch side at Ibrox in front of a near capacity crowd of 45,000 fans by Rangers T.V. The interview took place prior to kick off when Rangers took on Liverpool F.C. Following the game Yannick was fortunate to meet internationally recognised players Dirk Kuyt, Matt McKay and Pepe Raina to name but a few. Talking about his experience, Yannick told us, “Ibrox stadium, and the Glasgow Ranger’s supporters were absolutely amazing and I’ll never forget the atmosphere and experience”.
His overseas opportunities became a reality when Grasshopper Club, Zurich confirmed they had offered Yannick a place within their Under 16 squad. Upon returning home to Auckland, Yannick said “The facilities and level of coaching I had in Switzerland was great and I feel I’ve learned a lot within those four weeks”. He has subsequently accepted the offer from Grasshopper Club Zurich and flies out to Switzerland in early February 2012 to begin the start of his future career and life long dream of becoming a professional footballer.
Stuart Greenaway, Managing Director and a head coach at Coerver Coaching NZ states “We are all extremely excited for Yannick and believe he’ll do very well at Grasshoppper. He is a great inspiration to all our young students developing their technical skills at Coerver”. Stuart also went onto say, “Our philosophy at Coerver Coaching is ‘Dream, Believe, Achieve!’ and Yannick is certainly proof of this. We are all very proud of him, and will continue to follow his progress with keen interest”.
