Jobs and seasons are on the line when Melbourne Victory host Sydney FC on Thursday – and the consequences of defeat are incalculable, writes Tom Smithies.
The mood was a little sombre even before kick-off, from the boardroom across to the fans sprinkled around Netstrata Jubilee Oval.
The final home game of an Isuzu UTE A-League season those Sydney FC fans knew would not end in finals football was gloomy enough in itself; the fact it was against rivals Melbourne Victory, on a resurgence from finishing bottom to coming second, just added to the discomfort.
The saving grace was a sense that a new era was just around the corner: a glittering new stadium was ready for the club to return to, while plans were already afoot to revitalise the playing squad. At every level, even as the final game in Kogarah ended in defeat for the Sky Blues, the determination was palpable to return to the level of their traditional rivals in the Big Blue.
In a sense that has come to pass, but not in a way that Sydney – or Victory – expected.
As the A-League Men’s oldest enemies prepare for another January ‘Big Blue’, 12th against 10th isn’t quite the heavyweight contest anyone anticipated.
If Victory were to win their game in hand, their record this season would be effectively identical to Sydney’s; not the return expected on marquee signings and big-club aspirations in the capitals of either Victoria or Sydney.
The records might be similar but the narratives are not.
On the one hand, Sydney were a byword for consistency and achievement for five of the last six years – three of those campaigns came under Steve Corica, meaning he had earned the right to address the decline to eighth last season. Not just the right but the resources too, given the backing to bring in players with European and English pedigree in Robert Mak, Joe Lolley and Jack Rodwell.
Victory by contrast have yo-yoed in the last few years to finish fourth, third, 10th, last and second and gone through six coaches. For the club that has been the A-League’s economic powerhouse it has been quite the rollercoaster – but the assumption was that last year’s rise under Tony Popovic would be the springboard to a serious title challenge.
Instead – despite another victory away to Sydney FC in Round 1 – an already underwhelming campaign turned seriously sour when Victory’s fans invaded the pitch in the derby just before Christmas and injured Melbourne City goalkeeper Tom Glover.
Though the players themselves were not penalised by the loss of competition points in the subsequent reckoning (a suspended 10-point deduction), Victory are a wounded club denuded of their active support – logically the players can’t help but be affected by the sense of tumult from the past five weeks.
Sydney’s travails have been more humdrum, but no less dispiriting for their supporters. The vaunted new style and tactics have failed to spark an attacking frenzy, despite four goals apiece for Lolley and Mak, but have still left Corica’s team far more vulnerable to opposition incursions, enough to have accrued the competition’s second-worst defensive record.
Both Corica and Popovic can point to mitigating factors; injuries in particular have meant Corica’s first-choice defensive pairing have hardly played, while Popovic had to assimilate a marquee signing in Nani relatively late in pre-season, only to see him succumb to the dreaded anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture less than halfway through the season.
But broader questions of judgment and development hover over the fact of injuries and sub-par performances for both clubs. That first-choice centre-back pairing for Corica was a player shortly to turn 38 and another at 32 with a long list of injuries already.
Upfront, Corica’s decision to give Adam Le Fondre a two-and-a-half-year contract in 2021 was commendably loyal, but at 36 the Englishman’s haul of three goals this season does not reflect the number of chances created for him. Age waits for no striker.
Popovic meanwhile brought in a No. 9 with an injury record you could charitably describe as chequered, and Tomi Juric has so far been able to play a total of 21 minutes. A rather bigger involvement will be required of Juric, though, with the sale of first choice striker Nick D’Agostino to Viking in Norway, further depleting Popovic’s options.
Elsewhere, reigning Johnny Warren Medalist Jake Brimmer has come nowhere near the performances of last season, but he hasn’t been alone; the intensity and focus of Popovic teams classically has strangely been muted.
The funny thing is that we have been here before.
Just under 11 years ago, Victory were close to the bottom and Sydney were scrapping for a place in the finals; the records of both were uncannily similar to the same stage this year. That was the year of Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton returning to the league as marquees, but being unable to rouse their new teams.
This season, though, there are still massive stakes, apart from the traditional heat that the ‘Big Blue’ generates. In a hugely congested league table, Victory are two wins off the top six despite lying last. Corica, meanwhile, knows his position as Sydney’s head coach is under scrutiny so intense that defeat here could be terminal. The club could face the most painful decision in regard to one of its favourite sons.
As always, this fixture is drenched in pressure and purpose – just not quite in the circumstances we expected at the start of the year. Somehow, though, you know the temperature will be just as elevated as always.
