Victory sign A-League defender, loan him to Wellington

Melbourne Victory have signed young player Matthew Bozinovski and subsequently loaned him to Wellington Phoenix.

Melbourne Victory have secured the services of Matthew Bozinovski until the end of the 2022/23 season after signing the young defender to a two-year contract. The club have subsequently loaned Bozinovski out to Wellington Phoenix for the 2021/22 A-League campaign.

Bozinovski has yet to make his senior A-League Men's debut. However, he was part of the senior squad in the past two seasons. He has represented Victory in the A-League Youth 14 times and both Victory and his prior club Hume City in their National Premier Leagues Victoria competitions, making 60 appearances.

The 20-year old has also attended a number of training camps with North Macedonia's Under-21 team. He made two appearances for the side in last September in their UEFA U21 Championship qualification, playing 90 minutes both games and two further matches against Slovenia U21 and Saudi Arabia U23.

Bozinovski was born in Australia but is allowed to represent Macedonia due to his parents who are both originally from the country. His next challenge will now be with Wellington Phoenix. Speaking of the move Bozinovski said:

“I’m really excited to get started; it’s always been my dream to play in the A-League and be a professional football player, so it’s a proud moment for me and all my family.

“I’ve followed the A-League most of my life so I know the Phoenix is a great club with great fans – there’s been a lot of good players there and they’ve had some success in recent years.

"I’m really looking forward to meeting all the boys; from what I’ve seen and heard they’re a great group of guys and they want to win, and Ufuk is an unbelievable coach so I’m looking forward to learning under him.”

His new head coach Ufuk Talay, who described Bozinovski as "an emerging young talent" also said the following about the his new defender:

“We wanted to give Matthew an opportunity to demonstrate his talent this season.

“Matthew is young, enthusiastic with a good range of defensive attributes; evidence of this has been his recent international call up for Under-21 North Macedonia in the European qualifying campaign.”

As travel restrictions currently prohibit Bozinovski from going to New Zealand, he will not be able to join the Phoenix squad until they move to New South Wales at the end of the month. Reno Piscopo is also in the same situation.