This week on The Players Pod, Robbie Cornthwaite was joined by Sydney Derby icons Alex Brosque and Brendon Santalab ahead of this week’s Isuzu UTE A-League Elimination Final clash between Western Sydney Wanderers and Sydney FC. Listen below.
Family dinners have never been the same for Alex Brosque, since he sent that scathing message from the east of Sydney out to the west in 2016.
It’s a quote that has always stuck with the Sydney FC legend since he first uttered it. But the now-retired Sky Blues legend claims to this day it was nothing more than a tactical mind game – and one that, in October of 2016, had its desired effect.
Brosque was one of two special guests on this week’s episode of The Players Pod, hosted by Robbie Cornthwaite.
Brosque was joined by former Western Sydney Wanderers striker Brendon Santalab, and the two great friends reflected on the past while turning up the heat ahead of this weekend’s historic Sydney Derby Elimination Final – the first of its kind in an A-League Men post-season.
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It was Cornthwaite who first decided to open the old derby wound: “Alex, you said in (2016) that you hated everyone at Western Sydney,” he posed to Brosque.
“Do you regret saying that?”
“Not at all!” Brosque replied.
The comment came on the eve of the 2016-17 A-League Men season. Sydney FC were set to host the Wanderers in Round 1. Then-Sky Blues coach Graham Arnold called for calm in the build-up, but instead, Brosque fanned the derby flames.
Looking back on it now, Brosque revealed his declaration of hatred toward the west of Sydney was delivered with the intent to grant his side the mental edge between two evenly-match sides.
“I remember (Santalab) coming out afterwards and saying: ‘Hate is a strong word’. And to be fair, he’s right,” Brosque said.
“But this is where I go back to the whole identity of the west. The people out here, a lot of them – I won’t say all of them, but a lot of them – are born with that chip on their shoulder, that they’ve got to work so much harder out here, and people from the east are spoon-fed everything, and it’s so easy for them. And I disagreed with that, I didn’t like those comments.
“But that’s engrained in the culture out here, right, so I thought: ‘How do you beat that?’
“If you go onto a field and the two teams are even, but they’ve got this history behind them, and this mentality of wanting to go out there and prove themselves, basically, then you’re up against it. I felt like we needed something to counter that.
“We needed something to fuel ourselves… which for me, was hate. You need a reason to go in there wanting to kill these guys, wanting to win the match.
“I felt like we needed something to even the scales a little bit from a mental side of things. So I don’t regret it, no.”
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At the time, Santalab helped to stoke the fire. The ex-Sky Blue was preparing for his fourth season as a Wanderer, and responded to Brosque’s pre-game jab across town with his own.
“Brosque is a great guy but to hear him say that is a little bit disappointing,” he said. “Maybe it’s because his family follows the Wanderers? I’m not sure.”
Two days later, the two sides collided at Sydney’s Olympic Park. Sydney FC dismantled the Wanderers in a 4-0 triumph.
Brosque’s recollection of that tense week in derby history went down like a led balloon on The Players Pod.
“Robbie I actually thought it was a publicity stunt – and now, all these years have gone by, and I actually know the truth now!” He said. “So Brosquey, thanks for filling me in… I don’t know if it’s water under the bridge anymore, Robbie!”
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Fast-forward to 2023, and the division between the east and west of Sydney has once again figured as a prominent theme across three tense derbies in the 2022-23 season.
Former Sydney FC defender Marko Rudan was labelled ‘the Big Blue Man’ in his time as a Sky Blue – but now, he’s in charge of the red and black. Under his watch, the Wanderers broke a six-year finals drought this season.
Time and again, their head coach has leaned into the east-against-west narrative. In February, Rudan said: There is a divide and I’ve educated my players on the divide.
“There’s a clear disparity between the people who live in the east and west – it’s blue collar against white collar.
“I’ve said it before, and I said it after we beat Sydney on their turf, this is for the people.
“(Our people) feel downtrodden, they feel like they’re lesser of the two in society as well.
“It happened when I was growing up and it certainly is the case right now, it’s an area that has done it tough.
“It (an upbringing in the west) is something that sort of stays with you. It makes you stronger and that’s what our people are about.”
Brosque says Rudan’s words have helped bring the DNA of Western Sydney back to the club.
“In those early few years… you could feel the energy every time you played against them,” he said.
“You felt like they were playing for more than just themselves and for the club, it did feel like they were representing the whole of Western Sydney… for a number of years after Popa left, they went away from that.
“The recruitment was poor, the energy they had was lost completely. I’m impressed with the way Rudan has brought that back. You’ve got Brandon Borrello, who was born in Adelaide, talking about, ‘we’re playing for the west!’ If you’ve got a guy like him buying into it, then I’m sure the other boys are doing it too.”
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Brosque sees similarities in the message Rudan has repeatedly attempted to get across to the feud he began in 2016.
“My comment was about trying to even the scales from a mental point of view, and get our guys in the right frame of mind for this game,” he said.
“Look, I don’t hate everybody out here, I’ve got a lot of friends and family (here) and actually those comments did stir the pot when it came to family dinners.
“But I think with Rudan, it’s more (or less) the same thing: he’s trying to get a reaction. He understands that from a quality point of view, both teams match up quite evenly, and it is the small details that make differences in these games.
“I think he’s just driven into the players exactly what they’re playing for. Whether he believes it or not himself, I don’t think he lives in the western suburbs, does he? So that’s quite interesting. But he’s doing the right thing as a coach to get a lift out of his players.”
