Sydney FC W League coach Alen Stajcic has challenged the club’s A League side to carry off the title and create an historic double following the women’s 3-2 grand final win over Brisbane at Toyota Stadium on Saturday.
Three second half goals capped a superlative performance from the Sky Blues, who were behind for 66 minutes of a tense end-to-end decider.
Sydney A-League coach Vitezslav Lavicka sent Stajcic a congratulatory text message after the entire squad watched the grand final on television ahead of its Saturday night showdown with Melbourne.
“All the boys were down in Melbourne watching it as a group so that’s pleasing to know that they’re involved and they’re connected and we’re all connected as a club,” Stajcic said.
“That’s a massive cultural thing to have, to have one united club with women and men pulling in the one direction.”
“They’ve (Sydney) got a chance (of winning the A-League), they-ll be in the mix at the end of the year, and it would be great if we could do the double.”
Sydney’s maiden W League grand final win was not without its anxious moments.
The hosts went behind 1-0 to a Lana Harch goal on 15 minutes and squandered several clear-cut chances before squaring the ledger through Linda O’Neill after 66 minutes.
There was no stopping the Sky Blues from there; Sarah Walsh and Julie Rydahl scoring within five minutes of each other to seal a deserved victory.
“It was a fantastic second-half performance,” Stajcic declared.
“It often takes us 15-20 minutes to warm up into but once a game settles, we play the football we want and we get on top and that is what happened today.”
“I thought in that half-hour spell in the second half we could have got five or six goals.”
“We really dominated and scored some good goals, and probably could have scored a few more.”
“Brisbane obviously had to come at us in the last 15 minutes so they were a little bit exposed at the back.”
Brisbane coach Jeff Hopkins acknowledged his team had ridden its luck after going to the break 1-0 ahead.
“We started the game really well, got ourselves a goal up, but at times wasted a lot of the good possession we had and maybe should have done a little bit better at times,” he said.
“We weathered the storm for a while and I thought we’d got through it but they used their possession well and at times (goalkeeper) Casey (Dumont) was keeping us in the game.”
“With their front six, when they get a bit of momentum they’re very, very hard to stop.”
“They were a couple of goals better than us in the second half so every credit to them.”
“They played some good football and really took it to us.”
