"It feels like I never left" – Speroni discusses Palace return

Before announcing his retirement in 2019, Speroni made 405 appearances for the Eagles across a 15-year spell. He stayed with the club through administration and played a huge role in securing promotion to the Premier League in 2012/13.

In October 2022, Speroni formally rejoined the club as a coach in the Academy setup, working predominantly with the Under-21s and Under-18s. Commenting on his return, the former goalkeeper said: “It’s been great so far, I’ve really enjoyed my time here. It’s a good group to work with and I’m really enjoying it.

“It’s great to work with Paddy [McCarthy] and Powelly [Darren Powell]. I know them as players, as they are former teammates of mine, and now as a coach it’s great to work with them and learn from them. They have a bit more experience than me in coaching, so it’s good to be next to them.

“It’s obviously different as a coach [compared to playing together on the pitch], you have more responsibility and it is a bit different, but the professionalism, how they take every session doesn’t change.”

Though he only returned in an official capacity over a month ago, Speroni revealed that he was always in and around the club following his retirement: “After I retired, I took some time off and spent time with the family. I wanted to travel, of course, but sadly with the pandemic it was a bit difficult.

“I was also doing my coaching badges, and the club asked me to help a bit when I was doing my badges and, of course, I just said ‘yes.’ I wasn’t ready to come back full-time initially, but a part-time basis was fine. I’m still doing my coaching badges at the moment, but now I’m working full-time with the U18s and U21s.

“It’s been fantastic [to be back], the fans have given me so many messages of encouragement, they’ve told me how pleased they are to see me back at the club. It feels like I’ve never really left! I’ve been helping with some stuff around the club, but the reaction of the fans has been fantastic as always.”

While McCarthy and Powell have a clearly defined coaching role, Speroni clarified his job blends outfield work with specialised goalkeeper training: “It’s mainly goalkeeping coaching, but it’s a combination of both.

“Nowadays you cannot isolate. I don’t think the goalkeeping coach role is like it used to be – you’re not a goalkeeping coach only, you’re a coach [primarily] and then you specialise in different areas of the game. The goalkeeper is a key part of the team and you have to work together with the other players as well.

“[The role of goalkeeping coach] has changed a bit. When I was a young lad, my first goalkeeping coach was when I was 15-16, before that I didn’t have a specialised goalkeeping coach.

“The game changed. Nowadays you wouldn’t think a team would only have coaches and not a goalkeeping coach, but as I said before – we’re coaches and we need to work together, there's no isolating anymore. It’s so important that we’re on the same page with whatever work that we do for the benefit of the team.

“There's so many different areas of goalkeeping that you can work on. There's technical ability, physicality, so many things. As a coach, if you’re able to see what’s happening and see the areas where you can work with them and then put that into practice in training then that’s where you’re most able to help the younger players.”

There is an overarching desire to ensure a coach gets the best out of their players both on and off the pitch, even more so at Academy level because the onus is on developing prospects to become players. Speroni says: “Academy football is different to the first-team. We’re helping these young players become professionals and have a career in the game.

“It’s a long-term process, they’re getting younger and younger and stepping up to the first-team as soon as possible, but it’s a process – even when they get to the first-team they know they’re not the final product, they’re still developing and learning.

“[The Academy] is all new, our Academy training ground looks amazing and there's still some pitches that they’re working on. When it’s fully completed it’s going to be one of the best and it’s a great achievement to finally have the facilities to be able to help all these young kids with all the right tools to develop their game. It’s been amazing what we’ve done here.”