Delighted Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka has challenged his side to replicate Sunday’s impressive display against Brisbane Roar on a more consistent basis.
Delighted Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka has challenged his side to replicate Sunday’s impressive display against Brisbane Roar on a more consistent basis.
Coming off consecutive defeats at the hands of Wellington Phoenix and Central Coast Mariners, the Sky Blues were given little hope of ending Brisbane’s unbeaten streak at WIN Jubilee Oval.
But the home side ambushed the competition leaders with a goal to Dimitri Petratos after 36 seconds and were clearly the better team throughout to claim a deserved victory in wet and windy conditions.
Speaking after the match, Lavicka labelled the performance the club’s best of the campaign but urged his players to maintain that standard in the coming weeks.
“I’m happy now because we stopped the Brisbane Roar unbeaten streak… and I’m sure that was our best team performance this season,” Lavicka said.
“I’m proud to be part of this team and part of this club because [this] was something special for us, but I would like to see the team (repeat) that performance level in the upcoming games because I think we are able to do it for more than one game.”
Skipper Terry McFlynn added: “I think [this] performance showed really what we’re about this season at the club. To go into the game on the back of two defeats, the courage the boys showed tonight was excellent and I thought every player was inspired by what we’d done on the training ground this week.”
“The boss and Bimbi (assistant coach Steve Corica) set the tactics up fantastic, the game plan was played out to a tea and we got our just rewards.”
But the captain agrees consistency has not been the Sky Blues’ strong suit so far this campaign.
“It’s something we’ll have to address because consistency has been a problem for us,” he said.
“But that victory will give us an immense amount of confidence knowing that we can bring the champions here to Kogarah … and put in a performance and claim three points against a team with the longest undefeated record in Australian history is something to be very proud of.”
The win lifts Sydney FC into third spot on the Hyundai A-League ladder ahead of Wednesday’s clash against fifth-placed Perth Glory at Campbelltown Stadium.
McFlynn is confident the short turnaround won’t be a problem for his side.
“Physically we’re in very good shape, we’ve had a very good pre-season, we’re carrying a couple of little knocks but we’ll assess them and see how everyone is,” he said.
“The good thing for us again is that we’re at home, albeit we’re at Campbelltown which is another great adventure for us into the community as Sydney FC and hopefully we can get as many people as were here tonight out at Campbelltown Stadium on Wednesday.”
