After a season to forget in Western Sydney, Wanderers forward Brandon Borrello believes the club has genuinely turned a corner heading into the new campaign. The 11-time Socceroo spoke to aleagues.com.au ahead of their mouthwatering Matchweek 1 clash against rivals Sydney FC…
Having qualified for the 2025 Finals Series, spirits were high in Western Sydney ahead of the 2025/26 season.
In fact, many fans and pundits were even touting the Wanderers as potential Championship winners.
What followed was an unmitigated disaster.
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After a poor start to the season, the club parted ways with head coach Alen Stajcic, but far from fixing the issue, the club found itself in a tailspin it couldn’t escape and ultimately finished the season with just 21 points from 26 games, thus securing a first-ever Wooden Spoon.
Now, though, the Wanderers players are promising things will be different… even if it’s something fans may have heard before.
According to Borrello, the reason for the playing group’s optimism is simple: under new head coach Ufuk Talay and Sporting Director Mal Impiombato they have a plan, and they’re going to stick to it.
“Just the way we’re kind of lining up, the way we want to play football. Now we’ve got a sporting director. We’re trying to make changes,” Borrello said when speaking with aleagues.com.au Senior Reporter James Dodd.
“They’re into the club, culture-wise. It’s starting to sort of come together as one big family and you know, you get all these buzzwords: unity, fight, excellence. But if you don’t necessarily live by them and try and proactively change things around the club, then it’s all for show.
“I think since Mal and Uffy have come in, they’ve really sort of drummed into the boys that this is the way going forward.
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“I think you don’t want to get too much of a buzz from pre-season, but just the way we’ve been performing alone and trusting the process that things are changing in a positive way, and not just the playing group, but you know the coaching staff, the office staff, everyone within the club, it’s starting to become a real fun area and environment to be.”
While pre-season results help provide a picture heading into the new season, they don’t always tell the full story. That said, Talay’s new-look Wanderers have been hard to ignore this off-season given the magnitude of their results.
A penalty shootout defeat to Melbourne Victory in the Australia Cup aside, the Wanderers have beaten Auckland 3-1 in New Zealand, thrashed the Mariners 5-1, defeated Macarthur Bulls 1-0 and beaten Newcastle Jets 5-4.
“I think the way we play and the way the league is, it’s young, it’s fresh,” Borrello remarked when asked about the new style Talay has introduced.
“You know, the boys are fit and ready to go. I think the way we’re set up, we just want to hunt the opponent.
“First time we get the ball, play forward, all that stuff. That’s sort of us to a T. I mean, you look at our front line, you look at our midfield, and you look at our defence, it suits that style of play.
“I think the last three or four years that I’ve been here, consistency has always been that struggling factor with us at this club.
“So I just think as long as we understand the process and the principles consistently over time, the biggest advantage with the pre-season being that long is that we can just keep doing it, keep at it, keep at it, keep chipping away, and that should bring us some rewards this season.”
Having assembled their squad well ahead of the new season, Talay and his coaching staff have had plenty of time to not only fine tune their tactical plan but also establish their first-choice eleven.
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After leading the line throughout pre-season, Borrello is almost certain to be the club’s starting centre forward this campaign, and the 31-year-old believes it’s not just the perfect chance to right a few of last season’s wrongs, but also to rediscover the sort of form that saw him become a regular member of Socceroos squads.
“Football’s a funny game, and confidence works in weird ways,” Borrello said when asked for an honest assessment of his form in season 2025/26.
“In terms of like fitness and stuff, I felt fit, just it wasn’t clicking. Then you start trying to do things that you think are best for the team, or you’re trying to help the team, and really it just gets in the way.
“So you’ve kind of just got to strip that back and press pause for a second.
“I got a little bit of a holiday. I was away with the Socceroos trying to make the World Cup squad, which even I’ve got to put my hand up and say I’m the first person to be like wow, I actually get a chance at this even after what happened.
“So I guess it’s credit to the work rate and the work ethic and you know just trying to always put the best foot forward. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. That is what it is.
“But I think being able to just finally stop football from that season then come in, the boss is there, Mal’s there, the team got structured quite early, so we knew what players we had from either the second or the third week.
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“We had all our players, and then it was just let’s huddle up as a group.
“Sometimes you just got to either put your hand up or take accountability for what went wrong last year, and you know what, the past is a past. We can’t change that, unfortunately.
“Now we’ve got to make a difference, and there’s no amount of words or whatever can sort of change that. There has to be effort seen on the pitch and change seen on the pitch. And I think the way we play is perfectly suited for a reaction.”
With a clean-out deemed necessary by the club following their season to forget, the Wanderers set about building out a squad suited to Talay’s style, one that was previously seen at Wellington Phoenix and then, in glimpses, at former club Sydney FC before his departure.
Championship-winning Argentinian defender Germán Ferreyra has arrived from Melbourne City, 2025 Johnny Warren Medallist and Wanderers fan favourite Nicolas Milanovic has returned from a spell in Scotland and treble winner Miguel Di Pizio has joined from Central Coast Mariners.
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As a result of that off-season clear out, Borrello is now one of the senior figures in that Wanderers dressing room.
“It’s a weird one for me. I never really saw myself growing up to be that type,” Borrello said when asked if he sees himself as a leader within the squad.
“But going through my experiences in football, and then coming in and seeing boys come into the league at the age I was when I was in the league, you know, a while back, (I thought) maybe I can help here, help there, and then you slowly sort of get my type of leadership style.
“I go ‘if I can’t do it, then I can’t bark orders’ so I’ve got to make sure that every day I step onto the pitch or in the gym that I’m sort of on it. I hold myself accountable.
“I can’t get away with myself too much, and that way I know that if I’m barking orders or I want the boys to do this or do that to a certain standard or an elite level, that you know they can look at me and say, okay, Brandon did it as well.
“So I think that’s something that’s sort of spread throughout the group now, and it’s clear that in this change room it’s not just one leader that’s going to get us by.
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“There’s going to be times that we’re going to rely so heavily on the younger boys and you might look out on the pitch and go who’s the leader but internally we know who’s leading and who’s doing the right things and who’s driving a session or who’s driving the game.
“The boys call me ‘Angry Buzz’ because even though I’m buzzing around the pitch sometimes I get angry, but they know it comes from a good place.
“I only want to make us better, and it’s sort of something that helps me. You know, when I go off on a tangent, they sort of bring me back in, and then when they’re off not doing stuff right I’ll sort of make sure everyone’s accountable.
“It’s very harmonious at the minute. So it’s good in that sense.”
The acid test for that harmonious Wanderers dressing room arrives on the opening night of the 2026/27 A-League Men season when they travel into enemy territory to face Sydney FC at Allianz Stadium.
From ‘bang average’ to mimicking crying opposition fans, Borrello’s Sydney Derby antics have seen the South Australian become an honorary ‘Westie’ since arriving at the club, and he, for one, can’t wait for Matchweek 1 to arrive.
“Look, we feel confident,” Borrello said when conversation turned to the Sydney Derby on Friday, October 16.
“I know it’s like ‘oh, we feel confident’ – but we do. We’ve got gas in the tank. We’ve had a really good pre-season. The boys are starting to understand what a Derby round one looks like and how that feels.
“And there might be some boys in the change room that haven’t experienced that yet. But just through the way we train, the attitudes that we portray, and the intensity that you know we’re working at, we do that all so the game feels easier.
“We’re putting ourselves under so much pressure during the week that when it comes time to the game, things are firing.
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“We can’t just say that it’s just like every other game. In the lead up it’s like every other game because we’re training at 100%, but match day, the shirt feels a little bit heavier because it’s not just you that you’re playing for.
“In the end it’s a Derby on away soil and you always want to get one over them but I’ve seen it so many times where you talk a big talk and then you end up with egg all over your face. That’s not the case.
“We’re going about our own processes, and you know we’re trusting what the boss has in store for us. We’re trusting in our own ability to win the game, and it’s going to be a great hit-out.
“You’re going to throw everything at it in the kitchen sink type of game. It’ll be definitely exciting, but to win Matchweek 1, it’s kind of always where you want to put yourself.”
