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Sydney FC players celebrate during the football match between the Perth Glory and the Sydney FC in Perth Sunday Oct. 24, 2010. (AAP Image/Tony McDonough)
It only took them eleven games, but Sydney FC have finally cracked a win. That it came against a free-falling Perth Glory won’t have been lost on the critics, least of all those questioning whether coach Vitezslav Lavicka is quite the tactical genius he was originally made out to be.
Lavicka finally made changes to his starting eleven for the clash at nib Stadium in Perth, dropping goalkeeper Liam Reddy and under-performing midfielder Stuart Musialik and handing starts to Ivan Necevski and youngster Rhyan Grant respectively.
Crucially for the Sky Blues – at least as far as I’m concerned – he retained two of the players who looked most capable of changing Sydney’s fortunes around, Japanese midfielder Hiro Moriyasu and Brazilian striker Bruno Cazarine.
Cazarine’s two goals are testament to the patience shown by the Sydney staff in their search for a new striker this season, while Moriyasu was his usual tenacious self in a quasi 4-2-3-1 formation.
The win will no doubt come as a relief to Lavicka and his staff, but many Sydney fans long ago started asking why it hadn’t arrived much earlier.
How is it that a coach hailed by some as a revolutionary when he arrived in Australia could suddenly find his team anchored to the bottom of the table?
The long list of players cut adrift in the off-season – Bolton, Colosimo, Kisel, Aloisi, Ramsey and Payne – surely isn’t enough to explain it.
Nor is the retirement of talisman Steve Corica, who was swiftly replaced by the admittedly injury-prone Nick Carle.
Yes, the defending champions have been unlucky – refereeing calls have consistently gone against them, a plethora of youngsters have repeatedly been called up for international duty with various Australian youth teams – but one of the most worrying features of Sydney’s football this season has been Lavicka’s seeming inability to motivate his players.
Yesterday was one of the first times this season Sydney didn’t look flatter than an opponent, but that arguably says more about Perth Glory than it does the visitors.
And the fact some key personnel have been consistently out of form – Musialik and Mark Bridge among them – begs the question of why Lavicka didn’t make changes to his starting eleven sooner.
As it is, the Sky Blues still look ripe for a mauling at the hands of the Thomas Broich-inspired Brisbane Roar next weekend, even if Ange Postecoglu’s free-flowing side tend to save their best performances for Suncorp Stadium.
And perhaps the visit of Postecoglu is telling: last season, the much-maligned coach was fiercely criticised for dismantling the backbone of his Brisbane Roar team, yet Postecoglu has had the last laugh by assembling the most attack-minded and entertaining outfit in the league.
Brisbane are playing the kind of football many Sydney fans dream of, so maybe there’s something to be said for the cyclical nature of football – which can see yesterday’s champions turn into tomorrow’s cellar dwellers.
Nevertheless, I’m not entirely convinced Vitezslav Lavicka is quite the technical and tactical extraordinaire many have made him out to be.
Had Sydney FC lost the Grand Final to Melbourne Victory on penalties, perhaps we’d have a different view of the Czech tactician, even if he has been responsible for plenty of positive changes at the club.
Improbable though it once seemed, he’s also been responsible for their longest ever winless streak, and it remains to be seen whether Lavicka has gone from hero to zero within the space of seven short months.
I hope Sydney FC have turned a corner, and it would be an exciting boon for the A-League to witness the defending champions launch a run from last place into the top six.
Lavicka could once again be hailed a hero, however his team’s poor start to the season has left me wondering if the label hadn’t already been applied too soon.