You won’t hear Sydney FC midfielder Stuart Musialik complaining about his team’s recent lean run of results.
The 2008 Olympian has copped a lot worse during several lean patches at previous club Newcastle, where avoiding fans and media isn’t as easy as it is in the Harbour City.
Ahead of his return to the Steel City on Sunday for the clash between sixth-placed FC and the seventh-placed Jets, Musialik explained the difference between the two rival cities.
“There is always that added bit of pressure in Sydney because of the team we’ve got, but in a different way to Newcastle,” he said.
“In Newcastle if you’re not doing too well you bump into the locals and they want to know what went wrong on the weekend.”
“Sydney’s much bigger and outside of football you get your space.”
“There’s not that intense pressure because there are so many other teams and sports.”
“All the attention and focus isn’t on you.”
“In Newcastle it was all about the (NRL) Knights and the Jets.”
Jets players know exactly where their former team-mate is coming from after feeling the heat from their loyal but increasingly frustrated fans.
Last year’s Hyundai A-League grand final winners are second last on the table after 13 rounds and will just about disappear from finals view if they don’t at least grab a point on Sunday.
“I watch all their games and I guess things aren’t gelling for them,” Musialik offered.
“I think every team goes through bad patches and they’re just going through a bad patch.”
“It’s probably the worse time to be playing them because they need a result, but so do we.”
“Killing them off (from the finals race) doesn’t really come into it – it’s more about getting ourselves out of the position we’re in.”
“That’s all that matters at the moment.”
Sydney showed glimpses of its best in a 1-1 draw with Queensland last weekend but the sky blues are well off where they need to be if they’re to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time.
John Kosmina’s men have picked up just two points from a possible 12 in their last four outings.
“Obviously we don’t want to be the first Sydney team not to play in the finals,” Musialik said.
“If we can build on that good 30 minutes or so we had against Queensland I don’t think we’ll have a problem.”
“I think we showed in patches at the weekend that we’re starting to get it together so hopefully we can go on with it from here.”
“The soccer public in Australia is always going to look at Sydney’s results following all the hype about the squad we assembled and the expectations on us, but we don’t feel as though we’re going as badly as some people say.”
