Yesterday I made the trek from the Blue Mountains to the Sydney Football Stadium for yet another Sydney FC home game. I met my brother who had travelled from the Hawkesbury.
And as his final stentorian advice to players and coach echoed over the pitch I found myself musing; why is watching Sydney FC this season, in particular, so frustrating?
In some previous seasons I have travelled to games with a sense of despair (for example, when Terry Butcher was coach_. There was no frustration because there was no expectation. For something to be frustrating there must be hope, and this year there are reasons to hope.
In the game against Wellington there was plenty of effort from the players, strong support from the hardcore crowd, some touches of great skill, and plenty of pressure and shots. There are some promising younger players coming through.
The frustration is because the promising elements do not combine to produce effective team play, and I think the reason is that we are seeing the limits of Lavicka as a coach. I like and respect him but there is no way past this comclusion.
Let’s pretend Sydney are Barcelona (and no, I’m not Craig Foster). Why? Because Barcelona and Spain have played the most successful football over the last 3-4 years. I am not speaking in aesthetic terms but purely in terms of winning. So how does Sydney fall short?
If we go along with this conceit then the first glaring problem is that where Busquets plays we have McFlynn. Let’s pretend Terry is as good defensively as Sergio.
The big problem for Sydney’s attack however is that Terry is about as good as I am at passing and that is nowhere near good enough. Busquets is always there as an outlet for the defenders and other midfielders and this quick back and forth passing allow the players to get set so they can play controlled balls further forward.
I don’t understand why Antonis is not being played in this position. Perhaps he is immature, but he can develop. McFlynn’s passing is never going to develop.
Secondly, Sydney’s full backs. They push up to support the attack at times and deliver crosses which are mostly delivered obliquely behind the attackers and are easy pickings for the defenders. Barcelona’s full backs actually overlap.
This causes a whole new set of problems for opposing defences with crosses delivered from behind the defence. You can obviously argue that Grant and Jamieson are not Alves and Abidal; but their play is so conservative and predictable that they are not making the most of the abilities they have.
This leads on to the third problem of the whole team: there is not enough commitment to attack.
When Sydney attacked there was often a gap of 30-40 metres between the attacking 2-4 players and the rest of the team; so there was inadequate support for passes to change the angle of attack, there were few options to play a midfielder in, and when there were rebounds off the Phoenix central defence there was rarely a Sydney player there to profit.
You could see 4-5 Sydney players sitting deep and covering 1-2 Phoenix players when Sydney was attacking.
When Barcelona attacks they go to at most a three man defence with Busquets sitting in front of and between the centrebacks. The full backs push right up. This commitment also means that when the ball is lost Barcelona are able to press immediately to get it back as soon as possible.
Fourth problem: static and stereotyped attacking. Bruno always makes the same run looking for a header behind the defenders. No-one ever looks for a near post ball. Given how often crosses are hit short the chances of a near post run paying off must be high.
Another aspect is how predictable the corners are (with the honourable exception yesterday of a near post flicked header). The way that Emerton and Carle started to make dribbling runs in the second half from near halfway also showed how static Sydney’s attacking is.
When Iniesta and Messi make runs from those positions they have Villa and Pedro (for example_ making runs across and through the defence so the defence have to worry about the dribbler and the runners. Emerton and Carle seemed to have few options and were easily picked off.
And lastly: tactical conservatism in response to the game situation.
Towards the end Sydney actually went to a three man defence with Beauchamp playing in the attack. I would argue that it was too late, and too conservative. To me the correct call would have been to take Beauchamp rather than Chianese off when Mallia came on; if that had happened Chianese would have been there to put way the chance that Beauchamp bombed.
To be fair, Pique does occasionally play up front towards the end of games when Barcelona is trailing; but he has at least scored 7 goals in 103 games for Barcelona so it makes more sense than poor old Meggsy with his three in 210 odd professional games.
I realise it is absurd to directly compare Sydney FC with Barcelona, and of course that’s not what I am doing.
I am trying to point out what seem to me deficiences in approach by SFC by comparing theirs with the way the best do it. Let me know what you think.
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