Anyone watching?

Best team in A-League history ladies and gentlemen.

They're clearly going to win the Champions League.

Clearly.

Funny how Ange's Brisbane absolutely tanked the champions league but everybody conveniently forgets that because it doesn't suit the anti-Sydney agenda. 

No, they were widely panned for their efforts.

Sydney talked themselves up and have embarrassed football in this country.

This . If only arnie didn't say afc Will boss the acl. But arrogance from him cost them . That  and not naming the Dutchman In the squad was laughable 

nah, they were just found wanting. they rely so much on their imports that the 3+1 rule hurt Sydney fc

Ninko over bujis? Wtf was arnie smoking 

Tried to go all offensive, ignorance of the North east Asians technical ability became his downfall

if i was manager, id be seeking foreign defenders and DMs instead of attackers. perfect for the acl

No, everyone bagged them.

Yep, Brisbane got heaps of shit, they got 3 draws, Sydney only have two at the moment with two games to spare. 

My point is people seem to be suggesting that 2016-18 Sydney won't go down as the best ever A-League side because we haven't reached expectations in Asia. 

Its simple they can in the HAL, you answered that in your post

I don't see it. Seems to me they're calling out Sydney for talking themselves up then getting found out.

Contrast that with WSW who utterly bombed the HAL season and won the champions league. Or Adelaide who were a pretty ordinary side who ground results all the way to a final.

This is what people are reacting too and they're right. There's no denying SFC is a top HAL side.

Different comps, Victory doing well than them shows Australian clubs can compete with these teams. 

We bombed the season after winning the Champions League. Most of that Champions League campaign came in the season we finished 2nd and made the GF, so we were able to compete in both at the same time.

Kashima player nearly got through a 4 on 1 there

This is it, time for the Matt Simon show ....

Honestly I thought Sydney were going to do well in the ACL, not a chance to win it but I was confident they'd have a good tournament but it's been the complete opposite. 

Rotation of players and more consistent refeering got them IMO.

In other words Sydney FC are a well oiled machine suited perfectly to HAL conditions, ie. referees not picking up rotational fouling, and small 'workloads' (one game a week) allowing for the team to have older players.  Once those conditions change, Sydney dont work as well

I genuinely didn't understand the predictions of them to do so well and how they had the team to go deep in the tournament. All the signs of this sort of performance were there leading in.

 Yeh I had it all wrong. I actually put money on Newcastle Jets before the season to come first because I thought Sydney would die off in the A-league once the ACL started to focus more on that. I was way off. Although was close with Newcastle 😎

Let’s see if Arnie just gave up on the ACL or are there serious injuries.
With concerns over Ninkovic, Bobo and Zullo as possibly Carney, the question will be answered when the Smurfs play the Roar next weekend.

Slater no happy 

If the smurfs are losing Slater will never be happy.

I still lol when mv were losing he was so biased amd yet we drew and he was oh Sydney this and this 

He seriously needs to be dropped. 

Looks like a somewhat weakened Kashima side, including the second goalkeeper. Actually I think this is their first keeper.

Arnie trying to play mind games prior to the acl has backfired on him. East Asian teams will rip aleague teams apart. Most  of the time 

Matt Simon is just not very good at football.

The wizard of Woy Woy strikes !!

Has it been 2 years since Simon scored ?? 

Simon scored in the FFA cup this season.null

The sky is falling!

Josh Brillante is the worst player in the world when forced to play under any sort of pressure.

How has this charlatan managed to con those at Fiorentina, Sydney FC and now the Socceroos into believing he is a professional footballer of any sort?

does that mean they are out?

Unless Suwon Bluewings and Shanghai Shenhua draw tonight (just kicked off) it's pretty much mathematically impossible, yeah.

Missing their top 3 or 4 players SFC barely has a team. Have no bench depth whatsoever,

Why not get an Asian player if your youth players are not any good?

arrogance maybe?

Arnie made the mistake leaving out the Dutchman. Since then he has been named as next Socceroos manager. I guess you can ask the question is he now trying to tank the ACL? Maybe.

Arnie doesnt win if SFC go through to the next stage but dont win the GF. He wont be there in the post r16 ACL. If SFC did go on to win the new manager would get the praise. Everything he does is strategic so, he will focus on the league and GF. If SFC can scrap through to the next round its just a bonus. 

thats an interesting observation

i guess for arnie we can say Thank You for 2 premierships, 1 championship (+ another one likely now jets have lost their spearhead), Best wishes on your new endeavors

I thought this was our best performance in the ACL with Zuvela in the midfield. O'Neill and Brillante have been too similar, slow and obstructive in the midfield. Zuvela moved the ball on without much too much fuss or thought processing time and it helped alleviate so much of the pressure that Sydney has been heaping on top of itself in the matches so far. We really just needed someone with a bit more pace and confidence than Kalik to help us going forward.

I think every club should get in line with AFC rules and use the 3+1 rule so there isn't a repeat of having to cut one import.
With Bobo, Ninkovic, Meirzejewski, and Buijs which ever way you went by cutting one you fuck up the team. Much better only signing 3 and 1 Asian and basically playing your best team. I'd hate to have to make a decision who to cut, and even worse imagine being the player that's cut. 

That's only for acl. Thai teams have 5 foreigners iirc.  

 Yeh that's what I mean. If I was an owner of an A-league club I'd look to only sign a maximum of 4 imports with one coming from Asia to avoid the problem of cutting a gun player if you qualify for ACL.

Not trying to slam the kid or anything, just an observation, but I’ve never seen Lokolingoi add anything when coming on for Sydney.

Like not even a glimmer of quality. He always looks lazy and uninterested to me 🤔

He's a goal poacher. Played as a central striker that scores goals all his life. We play him as a winger and he looks confused and unsure what he should be doing. Australian football's insistence to play young strikers out of position costs us at every level of the game. 
He should have started in place of Simon. This is a kid who's scored over 50 goals in 2 seasons but he gets his chance and is suddenly expected to play out wide, beat a man and get balls in the box? He's never done that and so it's no surprise that he struggles, especially considering its also at a higher level.

Japanese football is in crisis mode tonight that the Woy Woy Wizzard scoring!

In all serious Sydney FC did well in the second half, the first half i thought they were very poor, but i also felt Kashima played much better away in Sydney than tonight.

My overall take, given the A-league is going 4+1 next season i would not mind seeing several j-league players play in the a-league, they have great technical ability. 

SFC really lacked some talented youth players coming on late .I guess Arnold has been hoisted by his own pragmatic non developmental petard.
If anyone can explain the logic in not giving Calver game time before the ACL,I would like to know it.Too much arrogance ?
Brillante has always had his limitations.Italy,Liverpool oldies and some internationals amd now the ACL.He is one of those players that can't adapt his game under pressure.He makes critical mistakes .
In the HAL finals ,if opposition teams dont pressure him,they aren't serious.

Suwon has scored.

Time for everyone to get behind Victory now, this goose is cooked.

0-2 for Suwon at 89 minutes.

FT 0-2 for Suwon Bluewings away to Shanghai Shenhua.

Sydney will have to win both remaining games, away to Suwon and at home to Shenhua, and rely on Kashima to take points off the Bluewings in the final round, and overcome a GD of 7 if the Antlers draw rather than win against the Koreans.

A draw or worse away to Suwon in the next game ends it mathematically for Sydney.

cooked

thought zuvela looked already good enough pre-season, arnie should have had him in the first team squad straight away imo. agree about loklingoy, been eagerly awaiting him to make an impact but has shown virtually nothing every time he's come on

Arrogant and over-confident team & fans going into this and not looking great. What's funnier is they were all so disparaging about MV and their prospects of being embarassing and so far MV sit with more points. 

Excuse me for gloating and being a total prat but this is absolutely delicious, just a tad dissapointed they got an equaliser 

Arnie has tanked the ACL in order to try and beat last season's records. It's infuriating as a fan. No-one really cares if we get an extra point on the ladder this year. 

His arrogance is ridiculous. Overstating the team's ability and also refusing to rotate his squad at all over the season. He has created a very thin squad, with zero match fitness outside his preferred 12-13 players. 

Calver had literally played about a dozen games over 2 years at any level, then get's thrown into the deep end in the ACL against far more clinical strikers than those in the HAL after Ryall's mid season meltdown left us massively in the lurch. 

I think it's a good time for Arnie to be moving on. We have some good young players at the club who've been given zero opportunity by Arnie. Someone new might add some pace, unpredictability and energy to the squad. This will make us far stronger in the long run if we can mix our best youth players with top quality foreigners. 

And no you can't blame Arnie for having 4 quality non asian foreigners.The standard quality of Aussie footballers isn't good enough, so the quality has to come from abroad. And we don't have the funds to get any decent Asian players.   

It will be interesting to see if Arnie throws in his youth players for the remaining ACL games.SFC are goooooooone.
I hope HAL coaches have been learning from the ACL and how opponents have closed down SFC.

Honestly though the only team in the ACL who have done this were Suwon. Kashima were just faster and technically better across the park.

It was the same when BR were at their peak and played in the ACL

This passing game that tears apart A League teams is quickly dismantled by teams that are faster with more cohesion. Where as teams that play defensive anti-football fair better in the ACL with a string of upset results caused by frustration, but fair worse in the A League because it cant be consistently done over a 27 game season

Cant really see what people are seeing in Zuvela, just didn't seem to do much, never really playing forward, Kalic on the other hand looked decent`and it seems a shame he hadn't got a bit more time in place of Carney throughout the year. Calver is a funny one, good defender but poor on the ball and adds nothing going forward, you really start to miss Bujis who can carry it forward and play some great attacking balls. Lokolingoy I really want to like but he just doesn't do enough even if it is a short time, you need to be hungry.

I know Simon scored but he really is frustrating to watch, it just brings the level of the game down and there is not much point to do anything but pump in long balls. Brillante seems to have hit a bit of a slump, I was hoping he would progress but he seems to be going backwards.

I just feel a lot better about Arnie leaving, I really want to see some good youngsters coming through and us playing a better level of football. I just want to watch players who are keen to go forward and organised in defence, not good defenders who are reluctant to go forward.

Wed

14/02/18

ACL

Sydney

0 - 2

Suwon Bluewings

Youre obsessed Scott.

God like this effort.

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