The undefeated start to the season for Sydney Olympic is over, after an
abysmal first-half display which saw us gift Blacktown City 3 goals to see them
take complete control of the match. What made it even worse is that there was a
pretty decent turnout of people who rocked up on a Sunday Afternoon at Belmore
Sports Ground to watch the team play, and to dish that type of performance up
was nothing short of a disgrace.
The match began poorly as barely 3 minutes into the game, we were
picking the ball out of our own net after an innocuous looking Blacktown cross
was headed into his own net by Yianni Spyrakis when there appeared to be no
danger at all. Not even 2 minutes after that, we were picking the ball out of
our own net once again, as some more poor defending saw Blacktown get in behind
our defence and sneak a second goal passed Paul Henderson to make the score 2-0
with not even 5 minutes gone on the clock, to the disbelief of all the Sydney
Olympic Supporters. Goal number 3 eventuated after one of my personal pet
hates. After receiving a free-kick in a relatively good position we decided to
play a cute short pass, this was followed by another attempted short pass which
was then intercepted by Blacktown, who then launched a long ball to their front
man and he made no mistake to make it 3-0 for Blacktown after 30 minutes.
What’s wrong with putting in a dangerous cross these days? It seems to have
gone out of fashion. Instead passing the ball backwards and sideways seems to
be the favoured option. For the rest of the half we had no answers and went to
the half-time break 3-0 down.
Usually after a first-half like that, the boos would ring around the ground, but
this time there was not a peep as the fans sat there in disbelief at the
rubbish they had just witnessed.
The first 15 minutes of the second-half was much of the same, it looked
like a bunch of strangers who have never played the sport before, it was a
crazy thing to see. It took a goal from the tireless Yu Kuboki, who did not
stop running all day, to wake the team up as he chased a through ball and put
it passed the Blacktown goalkeeper to give us some faint hope. In the last 20
minutes we stepped up our play and went searching for goals. With around 10
minutes to go Yu Kuboki finished off another great chance to grab his second goal
of the day and make the score 3-2, giving us the last 10 minutes to throw
everything at getting the equaliser. We did have a good chance late on but we
could not take advantage. In the end we left ourselves with just too much to do
after our poor first-half and we had suffered our first loss of the season.
The lack of substitutions was also confusing, we were down 3-0 and
playing poorly, but not one change was made at half-time. In fact the only
change for the whole match was taking Yu Kuboki off with 5 minutes to go which
made no sense at all. Sure he would have been tired as he did not stop running
all game, but he was our best player yesterday and would have been full of
confidence and looking to complete his hat-trick, bewildering to say the least.
For the first 2 months of the season we have been without 3-4 important
players due to injury, players who are integral pieces of the squad. As a
result we have had to rely on the same 12-13 players for the start of the
season and you could tell that it had caught up with most of the players as we looked
tired and lacked energy and enthusiasm for the first 60 minutes.
We need bounce back and bounce back fast, as we have a tough run of
matches over the next few weeks.
In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s were trounced 6-1, and the
U18’s lost again, this time going down 4-2. A horrible weekend all round.
Our next match is in the FFA Cup this Wednesday Night, April 26 against Picton Rangers at Picton’s Ground, Hume Oval, Kick-Off is at 7.30pm.
Our next match in the League is next Sunday Afternoon, April 30, against old
foes APIA Leichhardt at Lambert Park, Kick-Off is at 4.45pm.
Monday, 24 April 2017
Tuesday, 18 April 2017
Back to Winning Ways – Manly United 0-1 Sydney Olympic
Sydney Olympic remains undefeated in 2017 and is back to winning ways
after 2 draws in a row, travelling to Manly United on Good Friday Evening and
coming away with a magnificent victory away to one of the competition’s heavy
hitters and one of this season’s title favourites.
In a high-octane first-half, both sides went at each other with an impressive ferocity akin to 2 heavyweight boxers trading blows, with Sydney Olympic more than holding their own. We were close to taking the lead within the first 5 minutes but the attempt did not find its mark, instead flying over the crossbar. Manly were playing well also and creating their own chances, but nothing could get passed Paul Henderson. Around halfway through that first-half we had another good chance, but we could not put the headed chance away, missing the target completely. We were playing well and with a bit more luck, composure and some more clinical finishing, we could and should have been leading. In the last 10 or so minutes of the first-half, Manly hit back and stepped it up a notch in a bid to find the breakthrough just before half-time, but on each occasion they were thwarted by Paul Henderson, who was once again having another fantastic game in the Sydney Olympic goal. At the half-time break, neither team could find that all-important goal and both teams headed to the sheds scoreless.
The first 15 minutes of the second-half saw both teams have chances to open the scoring and take the lead, but poor finishing and some fine goalkeeping kept the score at 0-0. The titanic struggle would continue until 20 minutes into the second-half, when a goal would come and it would be Sydney Olympic who got it. Some great work once again by William Angel down the left, saw him burn a few opponents before sending a pinpoint cross to the unmarked Yu Kuboki, who made no mistake from 3m out to put us 1-0 up. After going behind, Manly predictably stepped it up in a bid to find the equaliser, to be fair they did create quite a few opportunities but they could not finish. With them chasing the equaliser, they left plenty of room and space at the back for us to hit them on the counter and with about 5 minutes to go, Yu Kuboki had a chance at a second for the night and a chance to put the game to bed, but he could not find the mark. In the end it did not matter as we hung on for the victory and the all-important 3 points.
The boys put in another excellent shift on Friday Evening, in a match of high stakes and high intensity, in what you could call a “short turn-around” after the tough 2-2 draw we had at Rockdale the previous Sunday. With Paul Henderson putting in another magnificent performance, he could play at this level until he’s 50.
In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s had a 3-3 draw after coming back from being 3-0 down at half-time and quite remarkably, it ended up a match that they should have won in the end. Whilst the U18’s put in another poor performance and experiencing another disastrous loss, 6-1 this time, after the 6-0 loss from last round. It can’t be a co-incidence that the U18’s have collapsed in a heap only a few weeks after a disagreement which saw U18’s coach and Club Legend Jim Patikas and the Club part ways, a very disappointing situation to say the least.
Our next match is in the League and it is this Sunday Afternoon, April 23, our first home match for 5 weeks, against Blacktown City at Belmore Sports Ground, Kick-Off is set for 3pm.
In a high-octane first-half, both sides went at each other with an impressive ferocity akin to 2 heavyweight boxers trading blows, with Sydney Olympic more than holding their own. We were close to taking the lead within the first 5 minutes but the attempt did not find its mark, instead flying over the crossbar. Manly were playing well also and creating their own chances, but nothing could get passed Paul Henderson. Around halfway through that first-half we had another good chance, but we could not put the headed chance away, missing the target completely. We were playing well and with a bit more luck, composure and some more clinical finishing, we could and should have been leading. In the last 10 or so minutes of the first-half, Manly hit back and stepped it up a notch in a bid to find the breakthrough just before half-time, but on each occasion they were thwarted by Paul Henderson, who was once again having another fantastic game in the Sydney Olympic goal. At the half-time break, neither team could find that all-important goal and both teams headed to the sheds scoreless.
The first 15 minutes of the second-half saw both teams have chances to open the scoring and take the lead, but poor finishing and some fine goalkeeping kept the score at 0-0. The titanic struggle would continue until 20 minutes into the second-half, when a goal would come and it would be Sydney Olympic who got it. Some great work once again by William Angel down the left, saw him burn a few opponents before sending a pinpoint cross to the unmarked Yu Kuboki, who made no mistake from 3m out to put us 1-0 up. After going behind, Manly predictably stepped it up in a bid to find the equaliser, to be fair they did create quite a few opportunities but they could not finish. With them chasing the equaliser, they left plenty of room and space at the back for us to hit them on the counter and with about 5 minutes to go, Yu Kuboki had a chance at a second for the night and a chance to put the game to bed, but he could not find the mark. In the end it did not matter as we hung on for the victory and the all-important 3 points.
The boys put in another excellent shift on Friday Evening, in a match of high stakes and high intensity, in what you could call a “short turn-around” after the tough 2-2 draw we had at Rockdale the previous Sunday. With Paul Henderson putting in another magnificent performance, he could play at this level until he’s 50.
In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s had a 3-3 draw after coming back from being 3-0 down at half-time and quite remarkably, it ended up a match that they should have won in the end. Whilst the U18’s put in another poor performance and experiencing another disastrous loss, 6-1 this time, after the 6-0 loss from last round. It can’t be a co-incidence that the U18’s have collapsed in a heap only a few weeks after a disagreement which saw U18’s coach and Club Legend Jim Patikas and the Club part ways, a very disappointing situation to say the least.
Our next match is in the League and it is this Sunday Afternoon, April 23, our first home match for 5 weeks, against Blacktown City at Belmore Sports Ground, Kick-Off is set for 3pm.
Monday, 10 April 2017
Rockdale Suns 2-2 Sydney Olympic
In a tough encounter on Sunday Afternoon the boys came away with a 2-2
draw. With a bit of luck and bit more composure, we may well have come away
with the all-important 3 points.
The match started off on the right foot for Sydney Olympic as inside the 1st minute of play we took the lead via a fantastic shot from Max Burgess, his long bomb left the opposition goalkeeper with absolutely zero chance of saving it. Of course by scoring so early it gives the opposition plenty of time to recover and work their way back into the match. Even so it was us that should have made it 2-0 a few minutes later, only to see our attempt miss the target. After this the opposition managed to go down the other end get their equaliser and it was certainly game on. For the rest of the first-half both sides traded chances but nobody was able to get their noses in front and at the half-time break the score stayed at 1-1.
The second-half started with high intensity from both teams, but only 5 minutes into it we went behind through a sloppy goal and had to come up with a good last 40 minutes to get something out of the game. Over the next little period there was some good play by us but no real clear cut chances to score until with about 20 minutes to go in the game, when we received a penalty. Yu Kuboki stepped up to take it but unfortunately he missed and it would be a chance we would rue for the rest of the game. Despite that disappointment we continued to push hard in a bid to find an equaliser and it came with about 5 or so minutes remaining, Yu Kuboki made up for his penalty miss, finishing well to make the score 2-2, in the dying minutes we could have snatched victory but Mitchell Stamatellis’ header could only find the crossbar, the score would remain 2-2 as the referee blew for full-time.
It was a very good match, with 2 of the better sides in this year’s competition and 2 sides you’d think would be there at the business end of the season.
It was another good performance and all the boys from back to front were solid and as mentioned earlier, with a bit more luck and composure we could have quite easily won that game.
With the games now coming thick and fast, which now includes midweek Cup matches, the reliance on the same 12-13 players is starting to have a bit of an impact out there. Hopefully the likes of Peter Makrillos, Jake de Marigny and Goran Subara return as soon as possible.
And now a comment on what we seem to have to talk about every time Sydney Olympic comes up against this Foreign Propaganda outlet masking itself as a “football club.”
What am I talking about? I’m talking about the inability of this alleged “football club” to control 30 hate-filled and extremist youths, whether they gang up on 4 Sydney Olympic Supporters in their 60s and threatening them with violence or whether its them jumping on the hoods and bonnets of vehicles belonging to Sydney Olympic Supporters and Officials, the common denominator in all this is that these pieces of shit have the freedom to cause as much damage and destruction as possible, all with the blessing and the protection of their hierarchy.
Year after year there are a number of unsavoury incidents by this same “football club” and year after year Football NSW continues to look the other way, there are never any repercussions for one of Football NSW’s pet teams.
It is nothing short of a disgrace.
In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s had a 0-0 draw whilst the U18’s had a disastrous 6-0 loss, I’m not sure what is going on there but that cannot be good.
A quick re-cap of our first FFA Cup Qualifier for 2017 where we took on Manly Association outfit Mosman FC:
As with any match against a so-called underdog, you really must come out of the blocks fast and with intent, you have to match their enthusiasm and try to kill the game off early so as not to allow them to gain any confidence, and we did that, getting out to a quick 4-0 lead within the first 20 minutes.
This allowed us to control the rest of the match as well as control the pace of the game as we eased to an eventual 7-1 victory.
That victory sees us progress to Round 5 of FFA Cup Qualifying where we will play Picton Rangers, details of the match are yet to be confirmed.
Our next match is in the League and it is on Good Friday Evening, April 14, against Manly United at Cromer Park, Kick-Off is at 5pm.
The match started off on the right foot for Sydney Olympic as inside the 1st minute of play we took the lead via a fantastic shot from Max Burgess, his long bomb left the opposition goalkeeper with absolutely zero chance of saving it. Of course by scoring so early it gives the opposition plenty of time to recover and work their way back into the match. Even so it was us that should have made it 2-0 a few minutes later, only to see our attempt miss the target. After this the opposition managed to go down the other end get their equaliser and it was certainly game on. For the rest of the first-half both sides traded chances but nobody was able to get their noses in front and at the half-time break the score stayed at 1-1.
The second-half started with high intensity from both teams, but only 5 minutes into it we went behind through a sloppy goal and had to come up with a good last 40 minutes to get something out of the game. Over the next little period there was some good play by us but no real clear cut chances to score until with about 20 minutes to go in the game, when we received a penalty. Yu Kuboki stepped up to take it but unfortunately he missed and it would be a chance we would rue for the rest of the game. Despite that disappointment we continued to push hard in a bid to find an equaliser and it came with about 5 or so minutes remaining, Yu Kuboki made up for his penalty miss, finishing well to make the score 2-2, in the dying minutes we could have snatched victory but Mitchell Stamatellis’ header could only find the crossbar, the score would remain 2-2 as the referee blew for full-time.
It was a very good match, with 2 of the better sides in this year’s competition and 2 sides you’d think would be there at the business end of the season.
It was another good performance and all the boys from back to front were solid and as mentioned earlier, with a bit more luck and composure we could have quite easily won that game.
With the games now coming thick and fast, which now includes midweek Cup matches, the reliance on the same 12-13 players is starting to have a bit of an impact out there. Hopefully the likes of Peter Makrillos, Jake de Marigny and Goran Subara return as soon as possible.
And now a comment on what we seem to have to talk about every time Sydney Olympic comes up against this Foreign Propaganda outlet masking itself as a “football club.”
What am I talking about? I’m talking about the inability of this alleged “football club” to control 30 hate-filled and extremist youths, whether they gang up on 4 Sydney Olympic Supporters in their 60s and threatening them with violence or whether its them jumping on the hoods and bonnets of vehicles belonging to Sydney Olympic Supporters and Officials, the common denominator in all this is that these pieces of shit have the freedom to cause as much damage and destruction as possible, all with the blessing and the protection of their hierarchy.
Year after year there are a number of unsavoury incidents by this same “football club” and year after year Football NSW continues to look the other way, there are never any repercussions for one of Football NSW’s pet teams.
It is nothing short of a disgrace.
In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s had a 0-0 draw whilst the U18’s had a disastrous 6-0 loss, I’m not sure what is going on there but that cannot be good.
A quick re-cap of our first FFA Cup Qualifier for 2017 where we took on Manly Association outfit Mosman FC:
As with any match against a so-called underdog, you really must come out of the blocks fast and with intent, you have to match their enthusiasm and try to kill the game off early so as not to allow them to gain any confidence, and we did that, getting out to a quick 4-0 lead within the first 20 minutes.
This allowed us to control the rest of the match as well as control the pace of the game as we eased to an eventual 7-1 victory.
That victory sees us progress to Round 5 of FFA Cup Qualifying where we will play Picton Rangers, details of the match are yet to be confirmed.
Our next match is in the League and it is on Good Friday Evening, April 14, against Manly United at Cromer Park, Kick-Off is at 5pm.
Monday, 3 April 2017
Huffing and Puffing – Parramatta FC 0-0 Sydney Olympic
In recent times Parramatta FC or Melita, as they have been known as for
most of their history, have always somehow managed to throw a disruptive spanner
in the Sydney Olympic machine. Whether it be pipping us in 1980 to the NSW
Minor Premiership (we would exact revenge in the Grand Final and earn Promotion
back into the NSL) or in 1990/91 and their Houdini act to leapfrog us into a
Finals position during that NSL Season and in more recent times.
It is not to say that they have “the wood over us” as we have a superior overall head-to-head record against them (26 Wins to 12 losses with 6 draws) and we did hammer them last year and the year before that, although they did beat Sydney Olympic in both of the reverse fixtures of the last 2 seasons.
Back in the day Parramatta Melita had some excellent players and teams and it would be no surprise or shock to anyone if they got one over us, but in recent times it really hasn’t been the case. Recently their squads have comprised of discards from other clubs and journeymen looking for one last pay day, as well as the odd-younger player, but they still find a way to frustrate us.
So it would prove again, as on an overcast Sunday Afternoon in South Granville, they would once again play the role of spoilers to Sydney Olympic.
As with our first 3 matches we took control of the match early on and dominated proceedings. We started the match off well and our dominance showed by creating a plethora of chances in the first-half, Radovan Pavicevic went close a few times but was unable to put away any of his chances. We had all the possession and we were basically living in their half of the field, but we could not unlock their defence, we were missing that killer final ball. As the whistle for half-time blew the score remained deadlocked at 0-0.
The start of the second-half pretty much went the same way as the first-half and if it were even possible, we had even more possession and we were increasing our domination over proceedings. The difference with the first-half was that Parramatta actually came out and made a couple of forward runs and created the odd chance or two, all the while never really troubling the Sydney Olympic goal. As the second-half progressed we continued to be frustrated by a stubborn defence, we were still dominating possession but apart from a couple of chances late on it looked like we were bereft of any ideas on how to break-down their defence or produce a good final pass to create a legitimate goal-scoring opportunity. The frustrating afternoon ended with a full-time score of 0-0.
No it is not panic stations, let’s not be stupid, but somewhere down the line it will cost us not having an out-and-out Centre-Forward, especially if the goals on the day do not come from any of our Midfielders, and we did look a little one-dimensional with our play, especially coming up against a team that parked a fleet of double-deckers in front of their goal, we were left scratching our heads.
We still played well and we were never really troubled throughout the match with our defence hardly tested, plus we grabbed our 3rd clean sheet in 4 matches.
In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s had a 2-0 loss whilst the U18’s had a 0-0 draw.
Our next match is this Wednesday Night, April 5, as we begin our FFA Cup campaign for season 2017 against Mosman FC at Peter Moore Park, Kick-Off is at 7.30pm.
Our next match in the League is this Sunday Evening, April 9, against Rockdale at their ground, Kick-Off is at 5pm.
It is not to say that they have “the wood over us” as we have a superior overall head-to-head record against them (26 Wins to 12 losses with 6 draws) and we did hammer them last year and the year before that, although they did beat Sydney Olympic in both of the reverse fixtures of the last 2 seasons.
Back in the day Parramatta Melita had some excellent players and teams and it would be no surprise or shock to anyone if they got one over us, but in recent times it really hasn’t been the case. Recently their squads have comprised of discards from other clubs and journeymen looking for one last pay day, as well as the odd-younger player, but they still find a way to frustrate us.
So it would prove again, as on an overcast Sunday Afternoon in South Granville, they would once again play the role of spoilers to Sydney Olympic.
As with our first 3 matches we took control of the match early on and dominated proceedings. We started the match off well and our dominance showed by creating a plethora of chances in the first-half, Radovan Pavicevic went close a few times but was unable to put away any of his chances. We had all the possession and we were basically living in their half of the field, but we could not unlock their defence, we were missing that killer final ball. As the whistle for half-time blew the score remained deadlocked at 0-0.
The start of the second-half pretty much went the same way as the first-half and if it were even possible, we had even more possession and we were increasing our domination over proceedings. The difference with the first-half was that Parramatta actually came out and made a couple of forward runs and created the odd chance or two, all the while never really troubling the Sydney Olympic goal. As the second-half progressed we continued to be frustrated by a stubborn defence, we were still dominating possession but apart from a couple of chances late on it looked like we were bereft of any ideas on how to break-down their defence or produce a good final pass to create a legitimate goal-scoring opportunity. The frustrating afternoon ended with a full-time score of 0-0.
No it is not panic stations, let’s not be stupid, but somewhere down the line it will cost us not having an out-and-out Centre-Forward, especially if the goals on the day do not come from any of our Midfielders, and we did look a little one-dimensional with our play, especially coming up against a team that parked a fleet of double-deckers in front of their goal, we were left scratching our heads.
We still played well and we were never really troubled throughout the match with our defence hardly tested, plus we grabbed our 3rd clean sheet in 4 matches.
In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s had a 2-0 loss whilst the U18’s had a 0-0 draw.
Our next match is this Wednesday Night, April 5, as we begin our FFA Cup campaign for season 2017 against Mosman FC at Peter Moore Park, Kick-Off is at 7.30pm.
Our next match in the League is this Sunday Evening, April 9, against Rockdale at their ground, Kick-Off is at 5pm.
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