Our Royals Family: Vio Miter – A junior coaching dynamo
In this edition of a series of features looking at some of the people and sponsors who make the Royals a fantastic place to be, we catch up with Vio Miter, one of the Royals’ most active junior coaches! In this feature, we learn about Vio’s Romanian roots and how he balances his commitments as a coach of THREE junior teams at the Royals.
Junior coaches play a massive role in how kids learn our great game and have the significant job of installing love and passion onto the future of our sport.
In Vio Miter, the Royals are lucky to have a passionate advocate of junior football with a long-held passion for the game.
And with three teams under his wings, Vio has plenty of love for the game to share.
Vio is an under-8, under-11s, and NPL under-16 coach and said he does not find it stressful managing three teams.
Outside of the Royals, Vio is involved in Football as a full-time coach. Owner of Vio’s Football School, running school holiday sessions for Melbourne City and coaching three teams at Essendon Royals, Vio is the ultimate junior developer.
Vio’s love for football started at an early age in Romania, where he would play street football whenever he got the opportunity.
“Football was very big in Romania when I was a kid. I would just play in the streets”, Miter said.
Coming to Australia at the age of seventeen, Vio had some unfortunate injuries that stopped him from playing in the years that mattered most.
His love for football continued, and when he had children of his own, he decided to learn more about the game and get into coaching.
“It was a bit of a personal quest for me because I wanted to learn the game how I should have been taught”, Miter responded on why he started coaching.
Vio felt the junior coaches were not teaching the right things when he was growing up, so he wanted to install his love, passion, and knowledge of the game onto the kids he coached.
Now coaching for over a decade and four years full-time, Vio has learned, changed, and developed new ways to approach coaching.
“With experience, you develop your own process”, Miter said.
Vio found himself supporting and following managers in professional Football rather than clubs. His two biggest idols being Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa and Roma manager Jose Mourinho.
Although coaching for so long, Vio still changes the way he handles situations, always trying to self-reflect and improve himself as a person and coach.
“One very important lesson a coach needs to become great is to be able to self-reflect after sessions”, Miter said.
As a junior coach with an intense focus on player development, Vio does not focus on solely winning and getting points.
“I want to teach the kids how to play football … Children learn faster and better when they are happy, safe, and they know the environment is fair”, Miter said.
Over the years, Vio has learnt how to approach and get through to everyone. He has different approaches when a player needs to be challenged or what to do when a player needs something a little more comfortable.
Along the way, everyone makes mistakes, but Vio accepts when he does and prides his integrity more than everything else to make sure he gets it right next time and learns from the situation.
Vio wanted to find a club with player development as their number one objective, and he found himself at the Essendon Royals.
Vio loves coming to Cross Keys on game day and seeing the flags, the people and the friendly environment each week.
The care and love Vio has for coaching is extraordinary, and it is people like him who help club communities form and new players fall in love with the sport.