Sydney FC striker Alex Brosque said any satisfaction in achieving a personal milestone on Sunday will count for nothing unless the Sky Blues can keep in touch with the top six by beating Perth Glory.
Brosque will play his 100th game in Sydney colours when the Sky Blues take on the Glory in a crucial match for both sides at Parramatta Stadium.
The 27-year-old, who made his Sky Blues debut four years ago, has been one of the club’s best performed players in that time, earning call-ups to the Qantas Socceroos and winning Sydney’s player of the year award on three occasions.
While personal achievement is important to Brosque, he’s more intent on celebrating it with a win by knocking off the resurgent Glory.
“It sort of crept up pretty quickly, I didn’t expect to be playing a hundred so soon,” Brosque said Friday.
“But I’m very happy and hopefully I can play another hundred. I think it’s good for any player to achieve any kind of milestone.”
“When you look back at your career it’s good to have these sorts of achievements.”
“But I think more than anything we need a win at the moment.”
“And while, like I said, it’s good to look back at the end of your career on things like this, most important is that we do cap it off with a good win on the weekend and get the three points that we so desperately need.”
But it won’t be easy against a Glory side that finally found some form last weekend with a drought-breaking 3-1 win over Melbourne Victory.
While Perth have won just one of the last 11 games, which included a 3-0 loss Sydney three weeks ago, Brosque expects a tough battle against Ian Ferguson’s side.
“They’ve shown, especially last Sunday that they’re not afraid to take it to teams,” he said.
“We need to match them intensity wise.”
“They’re going to come out firing and we need to do that.”
“Hopefully we can get the first goal and go on with it from there.”
Despite sitting back in 10th place with only two wins all season, striker Mark Bridge said the defending champions are still confident they can have a say in this year’s title race.
“If you look at the ladder I think we’re only six or seven points outside of the top six,” said Bridge, who returns after a two-week absence with a hamstring injury, said.
“It’s not much at all.”
“If we can go on a run we’ll make that up no problem.”
