Before facing the Mariners, Tony Popovic lays out his blueprint for the Wanderers' future success The likes of Gianluigi Buffon, Carlos Tevez, Paul Pogba and Chilean Arturo Vidal promise to make Juventus' trip to Australia next August a memorable one. Tony Popovic watches over a Wanderers training session. SITTING high in the stand at a deserted Parramatta Stadium, his eyes taking in the entire vista, rather sums up where Tony Popovic's mind is at right now. In the foreground is the greatly improved pitch, one of the factors on his mind in the immediate term, but up beyond the grandstand opposite is the middle distance - filled with thoughts of his three and five-year plans for the club. With one game left on Monday before the end of the calendar year, it's an opportune moment to consider where the Wanderers are at - little more than 18 months from its harried birth - and where it will be. The answers almost make you feel foolish for having wondered where the motivation might come from after the club's remarkable debut year, as Popovic unapologetically sets out his blueprint. We identified areas we thought we could improve in, and there's a target we have of how we want to be playing in three and five years' time. You've got to take small steps but I believe you have to have a long-term goal as to how you want your team and your whole club to be playing," he said. We're starting to introduce the youth team playing the same way. Last year was very difficult in that regard, this year we've gone with a much younger youth squad so there's time to evolve. We felt part of that was that we need to play better in our back half. We feel we're showing signs in each game of that but it doesn't happen overnight. We want our game to be at a certain level and next year challenge ourselves to raise the level again. We don't want to take out the things we've done well, but if you stand still you get overtaken. That way you're looking up [the table] and we want to be looking down, challenging for honours every year. The Wanderers squad are put through their paces. Of course that pursuit of improvement has consequences for the players. It's impossible not to raise the situation in that context of Michael Beauchamp, whose captains armband hasn't protected him from selection in only half the games this season. "My goal is that the team and squad improves," Popovic said. Matty [Spiranovic] coming in, Brendan [Santalab] and Tomi [Juric] coming in, all improve our squad and we have to make sure that the players who are here keep improving. We challenge them in different ways - and part of that is having competition in every place. We had the best defence in the league last year but I believe Nikolai [Topor-Stanley] and Meggsy [Beauchamp] need to be challenged. You can't go through the year thinking that regardless of how we do, I'm in the team. We've got competition everywhere now and that's how you get better. There's no complacency anywhere, and that goes for the staff too. We challenge them every day to get better, and I want them to challenge me. I don't want them to just say 'yes', I want them to challenge me with certain drills, or why something is better. If we keep doing that, I believe we can challenge for honours for years to come. The players by this stage are leaving for the day, but the coach still has plenty to do - not least offer his input to the ongoing talks with several players, stars like Youssouf Hersi and Shinji Ono among them, who are out of contract - and are in some cases happy to talk about their situation to the outside world. "I'd rather those things be kept in-house, definitely, but you can't control those things," Popovic said. If agents are speaking to other clubs about our players, it will get out - you just have accept that as part of football and part of our game evolving. Getting the game scrutinised and everyone having an opinion is great. Being back here a year, I can sense that we've gone up another level in terms of the interest of the public and the media. It's a constant talk about football, whether the A-League or the Socceroos. Growing up I used to envy rugby league and the amount of coverage it got; now our players are being scrutinised in every way, on and off the field.