The 2018/19 Hyundai A-League season is now here and tonight we kick off the season with the opening match in Adelaide. Our boys are ready go and determined to build on the success of the last two years to make this our most successful season ever.
A New Era
This season marks the beginning of a new era for our club. For the last thirteen years Allianz Stadium has been our home, but for the next three years we are asking you to “Come With Us”.
The redevelopment of Allianz presents us with an opportunity. An opportunity to take our home games to other parts of Sydney, to service new areas of our heartland and to build stronger relationships with many of our fans.
For the next 3 years we will play out of 3 stadiums.
The SCG will be home for our biggest games and in just 10 days’ time we will play the first ever Sydney Derby at the SCG. In fact, it will be the first football game played at the SCG in 33 years. We expect a full house for what will be a historic night for our club, for the stadium and for Australian football.
Jubilee Stadium in Kogarah will be our second home ground. An excellent football stadium and with a capacity of 20,000 it’s the perfect size to host a number of our games. Importantly, Jubilee Stadium gives us the opportunity to take our product to Sydney’s South, a vital part of our club’s heartland.
Leichhardt Oval will be our third home ground, and of all three stadiums, it’s this boutique stadium in the Inner West that excites me the most. We will pack Leichhardt to the rafters and create a cauldron like atmosphere like no other in the A-League.
Fast forward 3 years to 2021 and we’ll return home to Moore Park. To a brand new, state-of-the-art, football stadium. The best football stadium in the country and a real game changer for our club.
A-League
As always here at Sydney FC, we have high expectations of what we can achieve this season. Our A-League team has three domestic trophies to compete for. The FFA Cup, The Premiers Plate, and the Championship.
Last season we won two of the three. The season before we won two of the three. This season we want to go one better and win the treble to become the first club in A-League history to win all three domestic trophies in the one season.
It’s ambitious, but that’s what our club is all about, and we’re off to a great start by once again making it to the Final of the FFA Cup. The third consecutive year we’ve reached the final of this competition and we intend to go to Adelaide later this month and become the first team to win back to back FFA Cup trophies.
Head coach Steve Corica, and his new look coaching department, have built an outstanding squad for this coming season. It’s a squad with real depth, with quality all over the park and with the right balance of experienced leadership and exciting young talent. We’ve made a number of key new signings but importantly have retained the core of last season’s successful team.
We welcome experienced overseas players Siem de Jong, Adam Le Fondre and Jop van der Linden to the club, as well as young Australian prospects Danny De Silva, Cameron Devlin, Joel King and Trent Buhagiar, who we wish a speedy recovery.
ACL
We also have the Asian Champions League to look forward to again this season. We’ve competed in Asia many times now, we’ve learnt a lot and we know what it takes to be successful. Now is the time for us to become a real challenger, progress beyond the group stage into the latter stages of the competition.
We look forward to discovering our group stage opponents in December’s draw.
W-League
Head Coach Ante Juric has assembled one of the W-League’s strongest squads this season recruiting seven Matildas who will all be pushing for places at next year’s FIFA World Cup in France.
Alanna Kennedy returns home after a one-year absence, while one of the Matildas’ latest young stars Amy Sayer joins us from Canberra United.
We also welcome back Sydney FC Player of the Year for 2017/18 Chloe Logarzo and Westfield W-League Goal of the Season recipient Lisa De Vanna.
Our trio of American imports Sofia Huerta, Aubrey Bledsoe and Danielle Colaprico come with excellent pedigree, and after we finished runners-up in both the Grand Final and on the Premiership ladder last season, we look forward to going one better this year.
Centre of Excellence
In the coming months we expect to be in a position to announce more details regarding the location, design and timing of the Sydney FC Centre of Excellence.
The Centre of Excellence is a major strategic priority for our club with the goal of creating a state-of-the-art facility that will house our administration, football department, medical department, training base and junior academy. Our entire club under the one roof, a real game changer for our club, and combined with the stadium redevelopment, will set our club up for future growth and success.
In the Office
We have strengthened our administration team substantially this season by adding seven new full-time staff as we look to engage even further with our community across our three new home venues.
Corporate
We enter season 2018/19 with the strongest set of corporate partnerships in our history having recently welcomed global brands McDonalds and Fujitsu into our A-League corporate family.
AETOS Capital Group have renewed their commitment by becoming the club’s AFC Champions League Principal Partner for 2019 while The Star, PUMA, Beechwood Homes and University of New South Wales (UNSW) all remain with us this season.
Today, our club is financially stronger than at any time in our history and we can now say from a commercial perspective there is no bigger club in the A-League.
Membership
Having surpassed 15,000 members last season, our aim is to once again set a new record by reaching 16,000 members for the first time in our history. We are well on the way to achieving this target and hope to be able to make an announcement in the weeks to come.
On behalf of everyone at Sydney FC, I would like to sincerely thank you for your support of our great club. Sydney FC would not be what it is today if it wasn’t for you.
The Season Ahead
This season is all about building on the success of recent years, going one better and delivering our most successful season ever. We have undergone a lot of change in recent times but success is part of our club’s DNA, it is inherent in our culture. And we have every belief it will continue.
Again, thank you for your ongoing support of Sydney FC and I look forward to seeing you over the course of the season and celebrating many more successes together.
‘Come With Us’ and ‘Sydney Is Sky Blue’
Scott Barlow
Sydney FC Chairman
