Paavo Valakari welcomed onto coaching staff

We are delighted to officially welcome Paavo Valakari onto the coaching team of St Johnstone Football Club.

The 26-year-old, who takes up the role of Performance Manager, already has an abundance of coaching experience in his homeland of Finland with SJK Seinäjoki and Käpylän Pallo, commonly referred to as KäPa.

He worked with players aged between 15-18 at SJK and was also the head coach of the women’s team. At KäPa, Paavo has held positions of under-18s head coach and men’s reserve team head coach.

Part of his role at McDiarmid Park will be monitoring and analysing game model and performance, while determining how future improvements can be made. He will be part of the first team coaching staff and also take training sessions with academy players through to development players.

Paavo, who is looking forward to working alongside head coach Simo Valakari and assistants Andy Kirk and Alex Cleland, said: “This brings huge excitement and, I must say, it is also a huge honour for me. It is a great feeling to get started.

“The time I have been here so far, I have been able to meet people within the club, the players and the coaching staff. I have had a very warm welcome, both at the club and in the city of Perth.

“We all want to be together, we all want to work towards the same goal to make our players and our team better.

“We need to make sure that everyone is going in the same direction and with the same process that we want to push forward with.

“What I have seen first and foremost is a group of players who want to work – a group of players who want to work for this club and do everything to make it successful.

“When everyone in this club goes together in the same direction then we have a great chance to be successful.”

Paavo was a talented goalkeeper growing up but quickly found a love – and passion – for coaching.

He has been involved in performance departments throughout his experiences so far, understanding how to correlate performance process through analysis and sport science to enhance coaching techniques and exercise programmes.

Having watched from the stands in recent weeks, Paavo was able to take his place in the dugout for our recent match against St Mirren.

He explained: “When I finished my playing career, I fell in love with coaching. Now, the past five or six years, everything I have done has been towards being a professional football coach. My passion is 100 per cent for coaching football.”

Paavo, with a smile, added: “There is nothing like game day. Being in the stands watching has been nice because I’ve felt the energy in the stadium and met the fans.

“But as a coach you want to be close to the action and I’m looking forward to helping this team and this club.”