SOCCER - Former football royal brings tips to Tikipunga

If the name Mauro Donoso rings a bell, there's a good chance you heard his name last when he was footballing royalty.
Donoso, a former player for the now-defunct Auckland-based Football Kingz, has accepted a job as the head coach of Tikipunga Soccer Club.
For those who can't remember Donoso, he was a Chilean import whose skill and flair on the Kingz' left flank became one of the team's most potent attacking weapons.
The Chilean returned home after the demise of the Kingz and ended his career with Huchipato but he has since returned to New Zealand to pursue a coaching career.
He completed a noteworthy professional career of more than 400 games, including two Copa Libertadores winners' medals - the South American equivalent of the European Champions League - for Union Espaniola and Concepci?n Union and a number of under-23 appearances for his country. The 37-year-old will work with the Tikipunga premier team but also focus his attentions on training the club's coaches and the junior club's players as well as try to improve the entire skills set at the club.
Tikipunga president Jan Menzies said Donoso will fill the role of the club's football manager which includes coaching and overseeing the coaching of all the club's teams.
Said Donoso, "It's a great opportunity for me to coach in this country because it needs to improve its development structures for the kids.
"I think there are very good players here, very strong with very good fitness but they need more work improving their skills," he said.
Menzies said the club had seen the opportunity to take on a professional coach and had acted.
"We've done this because we feel there are pathways for our players through North Force through to the US1 academies but we feel that in the next tier down, there still needs to be a higher level of coaching in our club," she said.
While the club continues to put plenty of resources into training its coaches, Menzies said there was still something of a gap and that was why they hired the former Chilean midfielder.
"There are two ways to go really. You can pay players and have your top team winning and getting the kudos or you can look at a longer-term view of success and that's what we're trying to do," Menzies said.
The club has acquired funding to be able to hire Donoso part-time on a short-term basis, with businessmen associated with the club offering to top up his hours with work in their businesses, until he can secure full-time coaching.