Western Sydney can't let Australian sporting history slide away

Amid the feel-good atmosphere currently enveloping Australian football fans ahead of the Asian Champions League final on Sunday morning, one thing is certain – Western Sydney Wanderers can’t let this slip.

Win or lose the Wanderers can hold their heads up high? Bollocks.

If the Wanderers forfeit their 1-0 advantage over Al-Hilal then it will be yet another example of the club falling at the final hurdle.

No one can take away just how big an achievement getting this far is for Western Sydney.

Against all odds – financial, logistical and experiential – they’ve conquered juggernauts in Asian football and punched well above their weight. And they’ll be up against it again this weekend.

But they can’t fail now, it means too much. Too much to the club and the fans, but also too much for Australian football.

Win here, and they are one game away from rubbing shoulders with Real Madrid in the FIFA Club World Cup. Win here, and their name will go down in the history books as one of the biggest stories in the history of Australian sports.

Cathy Freeman’s 400-metre Olympic victory, the America’s Cup in 1983, Cadel Evans’ Tour de France triumph. Western Sydney Wanderers winning the Asian Champions League will rival those feats.

Football will finally hold something over every other sporting code in the country – it will have produced the first champion in a truly international club competition. Football will have also fashioned one of the most gripping and fascinating narratives to emerge from Australian sports.

April 11, 2012, out of necessity to assist a flailing league and through government funding, a football team that would represent Western Sydney was announced.

Just over two months later, the baby’s identity was confirmed. Western Sydney Wanderers emerged with a shiny new logo, kit and culture, all created by the fans.

Its foundation players, Kwabena Appiah, Tarek Elrich and Aaron Mooy, weren’t exciting stars or even widely lauded future prospects. They consisted of an unknown youngster, a tireless yet average workhorse, and a player who’d spent his entire career out of the spotlight in Great Britain.

They continued the low-profile recruiting process, finalised with the arrival of Japanese playmaker Shinji Ono over the burning star power of former Germany captain Michael Ballack.

Together with the promising talents of an emerging Tony Popovic, the club took the league by storm, despite a shaky start that saw them goalless and winless in their first three fixtures.

A premiership in their first year ended with grand final defeat in the 2013 decider. A second-placed finish followed in 2014, but again culminated with heartbreak at the final test.

The rise was extraordinary, providing a wave of enthusiasm and optimism, but in the end two grand final appearances don’t count for anything. And neither will an ACL grand final appearance without an end product.

The Wanderers losing on Sunday is something I couldn’t stomach, and I’m not even a Western Sydney fan. The support will stay strong, the club will still have its identity, but I won’t buy into the bullshit that either way it’s been a helluva ride.

The players won’t want to hear that, Popa definitely won’t want to hear it and the fans, despite assurances to the contrary, won’t want to hear it.

It won’t be easy, the Wanderers are still the underdogs despite their slender lead. Al-Hilal will feel aggrieved to have lost the first leg, and for the majority of the tie the Wanderers were second best. Popovic has done well to get his side to two grand finals, but he likes to play it safe, and maybe that’s what has been stopping them claiming silverware.

Here, the Wanderers coach needs to take the game to the Saudis, and key to that is starting with a positive line-up. Vitor Saba must start along with Tomi Juric, because an away goal would all but seal a historic piece of silverware. Sitting back for 90 minutes won’t cut it away from home, they were lucky enough to keep a clean sheet in Parramatta.

While the Wanderers can hold their heads high even with a loss, it won’t be the same, will it? Especially if there’s a dwindling feeling that they could have played more proactive football. The campaign will be glossed over just like other near misses before it.

Football needs this. The ACL competition deserves more attention than it currently holds, and a Western Sydney triumph would help galvanise the masses. If they can prove it’s a winnable tournament, the competitive nature in Australians will ensure we’re aiming to win it every year.

But Western Sydney need this the most. While it’s been a dramatic rise to the upper echelons of Australian football, the club is still missing that big win, the victory that will ensure their achievements aren’t forgotten.

Because let’s face it, who remembers much about Adelaide United’s ACL campaign in 2008? It was similarly impressive, but it was left behind because it was left incomplete.

Western Sydney and its community deserve this, for everything they’ve done for the game in this country. To be at Centenary Square in Parramatta on Sunday morning would be magic.

The game kicks off at 4.30am (AEDT). Let’s hope the Australian football ‘fans’ who are usually awake at such hours to watch the European leagues manage to set an alarm. No excuse that it’s midweek footy and you have to work in the morning. Go to bed early, wake up early. Or pull an all-nighter. Either way, it’s simple.

This is history in the making, the ACL is the second-biggest club competition our nation can triumph in. Victory and Real Madrid are firmly on the Wanderers’ to-do list. Victory on Saturday, and the Wanderers can truly hold their heads up high and confirm their place in sporting history.