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Pressure. It can do funny things to people; people at the top of their game, people so normally clinical in what they do.
Legendary LA Dodgers coach and Baseball Hall of Fame member Tommy Lasorda says of pressure.
“Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve started to think of failure.”
Equally, Peyton Manning, two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback and one of the best to ever play the game, says:
“Pressure is something you feel when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”
Sydney FC certainly know what the hell they’re doing. You don’t go through a season losing only once if you don’t, but how their players handle the pressure of expectation this Sunday afternoon will go a long way to determining the outcome of the 2016-17 A-League grand final.
So far they have handled the pressure situations well, but truth be told for most of the A-League season they were never truly tested and they never had any real pressure applied. They had the Premiers Plate sewn up by the turn of the year and cruised into the grand final.
This is what makes grand finals so fantastic. It’s the ultimate examination of a team and their mettle. Few would argue that Sydney FC weren’t the best team this season, but what makes finals so good is their sudden death nature.
Can they deliver when it matters the most? Not on a lazy Sunday in Gosford in front of 6000 fans, not on a quiet Friday night at home against the Roar, but on the biggest stage, in front of 45,000 expectant fans and a big national TV audience?
Try as Graham Arnold might to frame it as such, this isn’t ‘Round 29’, this isn’t a normal game. He knows it and the players know it.
While the pressure of outright favouritism will fall squarely on the shoulders of the eleven players who walk out in Sky Blue shirts on Sunday, that’s not to say there isn’t pressure on Melbourne Victory.
I don’t buy into the cliché that as the underdog there is ‘nothing to lose’. There is everything to lose. An A-League record fourth championship is on the line. In a grand final there is always something to lose.
The pressure is different though. This is internal pressure, rather than external. In this situation Melbourne Victory is the goalkeeper in a penalty shootout. All the pressure rests on the penalty taker, they are the one expected to get the result. A save is an unexpected bonus, but the ‘goalkeeper’, with pride on the line, will always put pressure on themselves.
That is Melbourne Victory’s lot this weekend. No one expects them to win, so they can, theoretically, play with more freedom.
They have shown in the three encounters with Sydney FC this season that it can match them on the pitch, but, crucially, not for the full 90 minutes. That is their challenge this weekend.
But for poor finishing they would have been well clear by half time in their first encounter this season at Allianz Stadium, long before David Carney’s controversial hand ball winner.
That is the difference between the two sides this year, though. Where Melbourne Victory has often fluffed their lines, Sydney FC has been clinical and ruthless. Give them half a sniff and they’ll make you pay, and they have made Melbourne Victory pay on all three occasions.
While all three matches have been tight and hotly contested, the ledger still reads Sydney FC three, Melbourne Victory zero.
It’s for that reason the bookmakers, and all the fans and pundits rocking up to Allianz Stadium on Sunday expect Sydney FC to win. Expectation rather than hope. It’s a very different mindset.
A win will also turbo charge the debate as to who is the best A-League team of all time – Graham Arnold’s Sydney FC or Ange Postecoglou’s Brisbane Roar. There is no clear answer, it’s down to what you like from your football. B
ut that only comes to pass if Sydney FC win. If they don’t, they’ll go down as just another good team. A very, very good one, but just a good one, not a great (or the greatest) one.
The players know it. Graham Arnold knows it. Their legacy at Sydney FC depends on it.
That’s pressure.