In the fire and chaos of a Sydney Derby, Ufuk Talay’s side came away with three valuable points to start their 20th Isuzu UTE A-League campaign.
In the fanfare of the Derby which often has challenges flying in from minute one, the Head Coach of the Sky Blues praised his side in how they went about things on enemy territory.
“Coming here and collecting three points is definitely a great start to the season.
“I thought we had some good moments and some good patches where we put our foot on the ball which can be so tough in a Derby which is a lot more chaotic than normal matches,” he said.
“I think the boys worked really hard and deserved the three points.”
This season, much is being made about the front third that the Sky Blues have at their disposal.
Joe Lolley, Patryk Klimala and Douglas Costa make one of the most dangerous front thirds in the competition, however Talay was quick to highlight more key positions across his side.
“Our boys will get a lot of confidence from this game. We have very creative players in our front third but it’s not just them.
“I think our sixes in Cass [Caceres] and Leo [Sena] are very talented on the ball and we have some really technical players that can play through anybody.
“It’s very important that we continue the work that we have done in pre-season. We saw glimpses of it out there but I sure we will see more as the season goes on,” he added.
“We sat down at the end of last season and thought through the process of what we believe we need to create a team that could challenge for the title and that is the type of players that we tried to bring in.”
Finally, Ufuk Talay was quizzed on his side’s ability to get the job done at CommBank Stadium having now won four in a row at the venue and in the process drew comparisons to his debut season in Sky Blue that resulted in the club’s first Championship.
“What we do and how we do things is very important and we have a belief of playing a certain way.
“It doesn’t matter whether we are playing at Allianz or here at CommBank, we want to go out and win games.
“The mentality and thought process of us coaches at Sydney is we always set up to win the game rather than not lose it.
“I was here for the very first season at Sydney FC as a player when we won the title and hopefully as a coach in our 20th season we can win another title.”
Sydney FC will travel to Japan to take on Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the AFC Champions League 2 on Wednesday night before concluding their large trip to Auckland on Sunday.
Catch Ufuk Talay’s side in their first home match of the month against Sanfrecce in the Champions League before a Sunday showdown against Macarthur at Allianz Stadium.
Match Details
Sanfrecce Hiroshima v Sydney FC
AFC Champions League 2 Matchday Three
Wednesday 23rd October 2024
Hiroshima Soccer Stadium, Hiroshima, Japan
Kick Off: 9:00pm AEDT (7:00pm Local)
Broadcast Live: 10Play
