Heisinburg
12 years ago
Messed up layout, sorry about that. Continuing on.
Sydney FC (2004- )
****The
Birth of the Sky Blues****
During the time of founding the A-League in April 2004, it
was decided that only one team can be eligible to represent each city. Due to
its immense size of a city, selecting the club to represent Sydney City was a painstaking
process, infamously receiving its name as the ‘Football’s Capital’ due to its
greatest number of football participants than any cities across the nation.
The first club, Football NSW, announced their intentions to
bid for a licence in Australia’s first ever A-League competition. However,
their chances of representing Sydney was blocked as it was challenged by an
infamous club known as the ‘Sydney Blues’, headed by Nick Politis, who also
made the same bid. The intensity between the two bidder soon broke out after
rumours and reports that the FFA (Football Federation Australia) were set to
vote in favour of Sydney FC, leaving Politis to withdraw and only leaving
Sydney FC as the only candidate to represent the city, which soon allowed them
to be officially launched as one of the competitors of the 8-teams striving for
the first glory in the Hyundai A-League in November 2004. The 25% stake in the
club was owned by the Football NSW, whilst the rest was privately owned –
during this time, the club had also announced its inaugural chairman, Walter
Bugno.
****The
Gathering****
The process of filling the 20 available positions of the
squad was done in a careful manner, as Sydney FC painstakingly searched for the
absolute best to represent the city. On February 2005, Sydney FC had filled out
16 positions – including 3 experienced Socceroos (Australian internationally
capped players), Clint Bolton, Steve Corica and David Zdrilic. Their head coach
was announced to be Pierre Littbarski, a former German Winger, with former
Norwich City player, Ian Crook, as his assistant.
Some reports have implied that Sydney FC still weren’t
satisfied with its establishment – not having enough confidence to win the
league, hence, the unimaginable rumours and speculations showing their
intentions to sign big-named players from the giant leagues, such as the EPL
(English/Barclays Premier League). However, these rumours were thought to be
rubbish, due to financial issues, and it was temporarily ignored as the club
finally tested out its current strength as a squad in their first match, which
was done with a crushing victory:
Sydney FC 6-1 Manly United FC, on March 2005 (sound
familiar, United and City fans?)
Still wanting time to enhance its performance and team
chemistry, Sydney FC toured out in the UAE (United Arabs Emirates) – as
expected, they have won all of their three matches against FC Hatta, Al Ain FC,
and Al Jazira.
*****Marquee
Player*****
During their time in Dubai, the previous unimaginable
rumours and speculations that were ignored soon become something that was an
obligation to be stalked at. To drive their ambition for A-League success to
the next level, Sydney FC had made a flabbergasting and astonishing
announcement, emitting monstrous radiation of fear to all other A-League
competitors, by agreeing the terms to sign former Manchester United striker,
Dwight Yorke, for a fee of $1.5 million for 2 seasons – the highest signing
recorded during that time. After this, alongside some additional signings, the
full squad of Sydney FC was completed, thus, the full strength of the club was
born.
1.
Clint Bolton (GK)
2.
Iain Fyfe (DF)
3.
Alvin Ceccoli (DF)
4.
Mark Rudan (DF)
5.
Steve Laurie (DF)
6.
Ufuk Talay (MF)
7.
Robbie Middleby (MF)
8.
Matthew Bingley (MF)
9.
David Zdrillic (FW)
10.
Steve Corica (MF)
11.
Sasho Petrovski (FW)
12.
David Carney (MF)
13.
Alejandro Salazar (FW)
14.
Andrew Packer (MF)
15.
Terry McFlynn (MF)
16.
Mark Milligan (DF)
17.
Jacob Timpano (DF)
18.
Wade Oostendorp (DF)
19.
Dwight Yorke (FW)
20.
Justin Pasfield (GK)
21.
Kazuyoshi Miura (FW) – guest player
22.
John Buonavoglia (FW) – short term signing
23.
Ruben Zadkovich (MF) – short term signing
24.
Tolgay Ozbey (FW) – short term signing
****WARNING****
The following information was not copied & pasted,
WHATSOEVER; all words were entirely typed by myself, so be aware that some
parts may not sound connected to Football, but trust me; IT IS – so keep that
in mind. Thank you.
****UBER-brief summary about Football
in Australia****
For many decades, the great continent and nation itself,
Australia, has been a proud nation of an abundance of successes that exploded
world-wide, from successful
culture preservations and economies to Hollywood’s finest actors and actresses
in the film industry. However, regardless of what’s been mentioned, the
nation also carries an overwhelming sense of pride in participating in a
diversity of sports - one in particular, Rugby, which the Aussies are the
world’s greatest underdogs, rivalling the ‘Spain of Rugby’, New Zealand.
Despite the fact that Rugby is considered a religion to
millions, another sport is also, at a drastic rate, imploding as another iconic
sport that Australia can potentially become one of the World’s top competitors
in – Soccer, or as many fans would like to annoyingly correct it, Football.
For many years, soccer was also considered a popular sport
in Australia, having its joint-competition with New Zealand through the infamous
NSL (National Soccer League) for the past 3 decades. However, like many other
sports; the intentions of bringing soccer to the World’s stage were greatly
overshadowed by the dominance and popularity of Rugby.
Under the shadows of Rugby, it was an obligation to bring
Soccer to the next level for soccer fans in Australia. This ambition became a
reality in 2004, as the FFA (Football
Federation Australia) decided to establish a whole new soccer competition known
as the A-League (also known as Hyundai A-League as it was sponsored by
Hyundai). Australia’s highest levelled soccer competition soon became official
after 16 months of debate. Prior to how many teams competing in the league
today (10), the A-League first began with 8 teams competing for the first
glory, and this was where Sydney FC (also known as the Sky Blues) first took
its place towards dominance in Australian football.