{"id":29487,"date":"2025-09-30T19:29:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T10:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=29487"},"modified":"2025-09-30T19:29:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T10:29:51","slug":"indonesia-youth-international-baker-lands-first-pro-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2025\/09\/30\/indonesia-youth-international-baker-lands-first-pro-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia Youth International Baker Lands First Pro Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne City academy prospect Mathew Baker has penned his first professional contract, signing a three-year deal with the option of an additional two seasons.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 16-year-old defender, who has Batak heritage from his mother,\u00a0 entered Melbourne City\u2019s academy setup in 2021 after first honing his skills through the club\u2019s City Football Schools program. Having shone for Indonesia at the youth international level during his development years, Baker now becomes just the fifth player to progress all the way through Melbourne City\u2019s pathway and secure a senior A-League Men contract.<\/p>\n

He joins an exclusive group of Melbourne City academy graduates \u2014 defenders Peter Antoniou and Jayden Necovski, goalkeeper Lachie Charles, and midfielder Lawrence Wong \u2014 to have made the same leap.<\/p>\n

For Baker, the deal represents a career milestone.<\/p>\n

“This is a proud moment for me and my family,\u201d he said, as quoted from A-Leagues<\/em>,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve grown a lot as a player in the academy and I\u2019m really excited to test myself in the first-team environment so I can continue to improve. I want to thank everyone who has supported me along the way, and I\u2019ll work as hard as I can to repay the trust Melbourne City has placed in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melbourne City’s senior academy manager Simon Zappia praised Baker\u2019s progression, noting the youngster had already made his senior debut in this year\u2019s Australia Cup Round of 32.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always special to see a player come through every stage of our development pathway,\u201d Zappia said. \u201cFrom his days at City Football Schools, Mathew has stood out for his commitment, work ethic, and maturity. We\u2019re delighted to see him take this next step, and we\u2019re confident he has what it takes to make an impact in the first team in the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melbourne City academy prospect Mathew Baker has penned his first professional contract, signing a three-year deal with the option of an additional two seasons. The 16-year-old defender, who has Batak heritage from his mother,\u00a0 entered Melbourne City\u2019s academy setup in 2021 after first honing his skills through the club\u2019s City Football Schools program. Having shone for Indonesia at the youth international level during his development years, Baker now becomes just the fifth player to progress all the way through Melbourne City\u2019s pathway and secure a senior A-League Men contract. He joins an exclusive group of Melbourne City academy graduates \u2014 defenders Peter Antoniou and Jayden Necovski, goalkeeper Lachie Charles, and … Continue reading “Indonesia Youth International Baker Lands First Pro Contract”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":28138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,26],"tags":[380,2466,110,91,3039,241,95,315],"class_list":["post-29487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indonesia","category-southeast-asia","tag-a-league","tag-a-league-men","tag-australia","tag-indonesia","tag-mathew-baker","tag-melbourne-city","tag-slider","tag-southeast-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29488,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29487\/revisions\/29488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}