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FFA Cup final loss must steel Sydney's finals resolve

Sydney's consistency will deliver them the championship. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Expert
27th March, 2017
46

Kenny Lowe, in the lead up to Perth’s match against newly crowned premiers Sydney FC, called them possibly the greatest A-League team ever.

What about Ange Postecoglou’s 2010-11 Brisbane Roar team that won the league by eight points, with a goal difference of +32, playing some of the slickest football ever seen from an Australian club?

Well how about this. Sydney, having beaten a fragile Perth on Sunday – missing, mind you, their first choice right back and goalkeeper – now have the opportunity to top the Roar’s 10-11 points total of 65, provided they win their remaining three matches.

Brisbane played in an 11-team league in that title-winning season, while the current competition has ten teams. With their win on Sunday, Sydney broke through the points record for a 27-game season, set by the Wanderers, with plenty of time to spare.

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The Roar began their historic winning streak in that season as well, and kept it rolling through until the 2011-12 campaign. Sydney were unable to match the Roar in that regard this season – they didn’t come close, in truth – but the fact that they are the first side to have clinched the premiership leading from pillar to post only adds a layer of steely reinforcement to their case for being the greatest A-League team ever.

Their defensive supremacy is also worth reiterating. Sydney may well finish the regular season having conceded less than 15 goals, which would be the greatest season-long defensive display ever seen in this country. So many things about Sydney’s season have been historic.

And yet, it could have been better. That FFA Cup final, lost in November to Melbourne City before the citizens realised they might not be all that good, will be clawing in the minds of the Sydney players, and in Graham Arnold’s, as they stride toward the finals.

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The premiers plate is Sydney’s first piece of silverware in seven years, and yet it could have so easily been their second of the season, if not for that dour defeat in the cup final.

The match was prepared for with such little ambition by Sydney, a tepid approach that backfired. In hindsight, and with Sydney’s soaring chances of winning the grand final in mind, the fact that this can’t become the A-League’s first treble-winning team seems such a waste.

The sky blue side of Sydney will be hoping the regret that pangs over this spurs their team on to tear into the finals, appetite not sated by the premiers plate, still raring to at least match Adelaide’s haul last season of a plate and championship double.

The strange psychology of having a finals series tacked onto a fairly sizeable regular season is a curious feature of the A-League. In any European league, Sydney would be able to put their feet up and savour a job so very well done. That can’t happen, with only a grand final victory shaping up as a fitting crown for this fine season.

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Saturday’s win over Perth offered stern hope that Sydney are still completely focused on maintaining their season-long form into the post-season. Perth are such a brittle team, a glass cannon, with the ability to shatter opposing defences just as easily as they are able to dismantle their own defensive bulwark.

Here, a horror debut for newly signed Romanian Lucian Goian, garnished with a booking, an own-goal, and an early substitution, sent a series of fractures through the Perth resolve. They conceded a second goal three minutes after Goian’s own-goal, and crumbled eventually to a 3-0 loss.

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Sydney were nonetheless ruthless, overpowering a team that had the prize of a home final still to play for, and dispatched them with ease and without fuss. There is no reason Arnold can’t maintain this intensity, even as the warm feeling of winning the plate settles around his team.

Shorthanded, with Josh Brillante playing out of position, they easily resisted one of the league’s most potent attacks, on their own patch. Alex Brosque spoke after the match about how this win almost acted as a sort of dress rehearsal for the finals:

“Because we had the week off, I think it was good to see.” Brosque, the man of the match, said. “You know, this is going to happen in the finals, we’re going to get a week off and then we’re going to have to back it up after that. So it was good to have a week off, come to Perth, and put in a performance like we did.”

Brandon O’Neill also spoke: “Our ultimate goal is to win the championship.”

It appears as though eyes are narrowing, dialled in on what remains within reach. Milos Ninkovic was interviewed after the game too, and intimated that perhaps he won’t be at Sydney FC next season; as if the Sky Blues need another reason to capitalise on the present.

Melbourne City, whose form over the last eight games reads as follows: Loss, Loss, Draw, Win, Loss, Win, Win, Loss – an exemplar of how not to enter the finals with any kind of consistent form – are Sydney’s next opponents.

Brun Fornaroli dribbles the ball

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Sydney will need little motivation to re-stamp their superiority on the league’s highest-paid team. Then two warm-down games against Wellington and Newcastle, both teams who will have nothing to play for. “Don’t let that fire in the belly fade, boys” Arnold will be urging, “there’s still work to do”.

They may not be the aesthetic pleasure that Roarcelona lot were, but their premiership has been seized and throttled with a sort of callous arrogance, a premiership stalked down rather than just pursued. The chip that Melbourne City knocked off their shoulder in that cup final in November ought to keep them in the mood.

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