Wellington Olympic striker Gianni Bouzoukis has signed for Sydney National Premier League side NWS Spirit.
The co-winner of New Zealand’s Men’s National League Golden Boot for the past two seasons, Bouzoukis (25) will cross the Tasman in December to join his new club.
Main photo: Gianni Bouzoukis … collects his second Golden Boot from NZ Football’s General Manager of High Performance, Keir Hansen. Photo: Shane Wenzlick / Phototek.
Spirit won promotion to the NPL NSW men’s competition in 2022, and this year finished in 11th place. Spirit won the Waratah Cup in 2022.
Bouzoukis has been a prolific goalscorer for Wellington Olympic, scoring 104 goals in 130 first-team appearances for the New Zealand national champions.
He ended his stay at Olympic last weekend, helping the side beat previous champions Auckland City 2-0 in the Grand Final of the Men’s National League.
His new club is the successor to the defunct Northern Spirit, which entered the National Soccer League in 1998 with the current Socceroos coach Graham Arnold as its player/coach.
The current club formed in 2005 as Gladesville Spirit, became GHFA Spirit and then North West Sydney Spirit in 2019.
They recently re-appointed David Perkovic (41) on a five-year deal to be their head coach, and the club’s technical director.
Bouzoukis’s move to the Spirit was helped by the Lee Fratelli agency, based in Auckland/Sydney.
This is the striker’s second attempt to develop his career overseas. In late 2022, he left Olympic to play in the Finnish professional league. However, it didn’t work out and he returned to New Zealand with an injury.
The striker featured in all Olympic’s National League fixtures this season, scoring 11 goals, and sharing the Golden Boot with Cashmere Technical’s Garbhan Coughlan.
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