Well another disappointing season for Sydney Olympic comes to an abrupt
end, a season that started with so much optimism and promise, only to see it
flounder like most of our seasons have since being back in the NSW State
League.
Our chances in this game, an important Elimination Final, were severely
hampered even before a ball was kicked, as Mitchell Stamatellis was ruled out
before the game through injury and we certainly missed his leadership out there.
This was coupled with the fact our best player William Angel, picked up an
injury just before half-time and had to come off, it was always going to be an
up-hill battle from there without 2 of our most influential players.
To the players credit though, they did put up a good fight, gave a good account
of themselves and gave it their all, but it was never going to be enough unless
we had a bit of luck on our side and we didn’t have any of that either. As it
turned out, it was Manly United who progressed to Week 2 of the Finals and for our
Sydney Olympic it is now season over.
It brings to an end a season where the description “up and down”
wouldn’t do it justice. We had a great start, had our customary mid-season
slump, had 3 coaches, had players coming and going on a weekly basis, had an
embarrassing failure in the FFA Cup and finally barely managed to scrape into
the Finals. What a way to commemorate the Club’s 60th anniversary hey.
As has been rumoured and given what I know and what has been written and said
already, we will in all likelihood lose half of our squad from this season and
as is becoming a bit of a custom for Sydney Olympic, we will in all likelihood have
to build a side from scratch once again in the off-season. It is no way to
operate in this League, we need continuity.
In a sane and ideal World, the Club and the Board should be doing
whatever is necessary to re-sign and keep; Mitchell Stamatellis, William Angel,
Yianni Spyrakis, Jason Madonis, Hagi Gligor, Niko Tsattalios, Darcy Burgess,
George Timotheou, Paul Katsetis, Paul Henderson and Jake de Marigny who
although didn’t play a game for us in 2017 due to a long-term injury, he showed
us in 2016 how good he is and it is worth keeping faith in him.
- Max Burgess was by far our best player, but it was all too brief as he was
gone less than 1/3 of the way into the season and we could never replace him.
- Tass Mourdoukoutas was impressive whenever he was available to be in the
side, but from what we have been told he has already left and gone to the West
Sydney a-league Franchise.
- Peter Makrillos was mooted as a great signing at the time, but he barely took
the field for us this season and in hindsight, the essential swap we had with
Rockdale for Harris Gaitatzis was a mistake.
- I don’t watch a-league so I don’t know what kind of striker or scoring record
Radovan Pavicevic had, but what is for certain, is he couldn’t hit the side of
a barn for us this season.
- Tom Whiteside was a bit hit and miss, some good games and some poor ones.
- The 2 Asian boys Jinya and Yu gave their all and were decent for us at
times this season, but drifted in and out of too many games and I am unsure on
their visa status or what their plans are for next season.
- Liam Youlley who came in as a new signing was gone 2 weeks later, I never
understood that signing.
After the Club and Board ideally re-sign the players that I mentioned,
they should not be resting on their laurels and they should be going out and
looking to add quality players that will complement the re-signed players.
First and foremost we need to sign a quality Centre-Forward, this has been a
major Achilles heel for the team for many seasons. Also find a Left-Back from
somewhere, another problem position.
It is a big ask to expect something different, but the Club and the Board
should not make the same mistakes we have been making for the past 5 years. We
should already be preparing for next season.
In terms of the Club Championship, anybody who has followed that closely this
year, knows it has been an abysmal year, both the U18’s and U20’s were
shockingly bad for the vast majority of both their seasons.
Of course this is what determines who is relegated at the end of each
season, thanks to First Grade and a truly tragic Melita side, we stayed well
clear of any relegation danger in 2017. But with a rejuvenated Marconi coming
back up next season and with the expected improvements in the rest of the
teams, next season will be a much harder task to stay up. We must be
prepared accordingly.
Tempe ah Tempe, remember when there were optimistic announcements and
even plans drawn up? In fairness we’ve heard this type of thing before, we’ve
been hearing about various plans for several decades if truth be told, so maybe
we should never have gotten our hopes up in the first place?
Depending on who you talk to, Tempe is off and has been off for a while – or – the
Club is waiting for the outcome of the Inner West council elections which take
place on Saturday September 9. Either way we shall wait and see, it is likely we
will know fairly soon enough.
Last year we had an AGM for the first time in some 4 years, hopefully
there is an announcement soon about the 2017 AGM and maybe we can get some
answers to a lot of questions.
With the season now over, this blog will be checking in once a month for a
monthly update, but you can always leave a comment or send a message via Sydney
Olympic Supporters on Facebook or @SOFC_Supporters on Twitter.
Sunday, 20 August 2017
Monday, 14 August 2017
Sutherland Sharks 1-2 Sydney Olympic
After a slump that saw us on the brink of being out of contention for
this year’s Finals Series, we have steadied the ship somewhat and finished the
regular season with 3 straight victories. Sydney Olympic came back from being
1-0 down at half-time to record a come from behind 2-1 victory against the Sutherland
Sharks on Sunday, sealing us 5th spot on the Ladder.
It was a poor start to the match for Sydney Olympic, as within the first 5 minutes we managed to fall behind by conceding an early goal, meaning that we would now have to chase the game against Sutherland. This was always going to be a difficult task as Sutherland sat back after they scored and organised themselves so that they could hit us on the counter-attack, knowing full well we would come out trying to score goals. This is how the rest of the first-half played out. We created a couple of chances to draw ourselves level in the contest, but we could not put the ball into the back of the net. As we pushed, Sutherland predictably managed to find the space in behind us and get themselves into a couple of good goal scoring opportunities, but they could not add to their 1-0 lead. We continued to play well but we could not crack the Sutherland defence. After a fairly even first-half we headed to the half-time break trailing 1-0, knowing full well we had a job ahead of ourselves to come away with a draw let alone the 3 points.
In what could have been a carbon copy of how we started the first-half, the first 5 minutes of the second-half could have easily seen us cop another early goal to go 2-0 down, but luckily for us, Sutherland did not have their scoring boots on this time. After this brief scare we got back into the groove of the match. Around 15 minutes into the second-half we were awarded a penalty, this made a lot of the supporters nervous as our penalty-taking record in 2017 has been pretty abysmal, but Mitchell Stamatellis stepped up and confidently converted the spot-kick, to bring us level at 1-1. The goal seemed to give the players the boost that was needed to go on and hunt a winning goal. We were creating enough chances and even had a goal disallowed for offside, but with around 15 minutes to go we would get the all-important winner via Nick Tsattalios with his well struck finish. All in all it was not the greatest of performances from Sydney Olympic, but we did what was needed and head into the Finals with our tails up.
It was a good hit-out for the team, to experience going down early in a match, trail at half-time, but then be good enough to turn around the result in the second-half. The last 3 weeks should instill enough confidence in the players to know that they can beat anybody that is put in front of them.
As is usual at this time of the season, clubs have been and are preparing and putting their squads together for next season. I have it on good authority that several opposition clubs are circling and planning to speak to several of our players. Sydney Olympic should do everything reasonably possible to keep this year’s squad together and in fact add to it for next season.
For the Club Championship, the U20’s lost 3-0 and the U18’s recorded a 2-2 draw.
Sad news for the Club from the past week was news of the passing of former Sydney Olympic President, Jim Kelaiditis, who was President of the Club during the 1990’s. Our condolences go out to the Kelaiditis family.
Well it is now Finals time. This Saturday Night, August 19, we will play a 4th vs. 5th Elimination Final against Manly United at Cromer Park. Kick-Off is at 5pm.
It was a poor start to the match for Sydney Olympic, as within the first 5 minutes we managed to fall behind by conceding an early goal, meaning that we would now have to chase the game against Sutherland. This was always going to be a difficult task as Sutherland sat back after they scored and organised themselves so that they could hit us on the counter-attack, knowing full well we would come out trying to score goals. This is how the rest of the first-half played out. We created a couple of chances to draw ourselves level in the contest, but we could not put the ball into the back of the net. As we pushed, Sutherland predictably managed to find the space in behind us and get themselves into a couple of good goal scoring opportunities, but they could not add to their 1-0 lead. We continued to play well but we could not crack the Sutherland defence. After a fairly even first-half we headed to the half-time break trailing 1-0, knowing full well we had a job ahead of ourselves to come away with a draw let alone the 3 points.
In what could have been a carbon copy of how we started the first-half, the first 5 minutes of the second-half could have easily seen us cop another early goal to go 2-0 down, but luckily for us, Sutherland did not have their scoring boots on this time. After this brief scare we got back into the groove of the match. Around 15 minutes into the second-half we were awarded a penalty, this made a lot of the supporters nervous as our penalty-taking record in 2017 has been pretty abysmal, but Mitchell Stamatellis stepped up and confidently converted the spot-kick, to bring us level at 1-1. The goal seemed to give the players the boost that was needed to go on and hunt a winning goal. We were creating enough chances and even had a goal disallowed for offside, but with around 15 minutes to go we would get the all-important winner via Nick Tsattalios with his well struck finish. All in all it was not the greatest of performances from Sydney Olympic, but we did what was needed and head into the Finals with our tails up.
It was a good hit-out for the team, to experience going down early in a match, trail at half-time, but then be good enough to turn around the result in the second-half. The last 3 weeks should instill enough confidence in the players to know that they can beat anybody that is put in front of them.
As is usual at this time of the season, clubs have been and are preparing and putting their squads together for next season. I have it on good authority that several opposition clubs are circling and planning to speak to several of our players. Sydney Olympic should do everything reasonably possible to keep this year’s squad together and in fact add to it for next season.
For the Club Championship, the U20’s lost 3-0 and the U18’s recorded a 2-2 draw.
Sad news for the Club from the past week was news of the passing of former Sydney Olympic President, Jim Kelaiditis, who was President of the Club during the 1990’s. Our condolences go out to the Kelaiditis family.
Well it is now Finals time. This Saturday Night, August 19, we will play a 4th vs. 5th Elimination Final against Manly United at Cromer Park. Kick-Off is at 5pm.
Monday, 7 August 2017
Sydney Olympic 4-0 Hakoah Sydney City-East
Sydney Olympic seems to have gotten itself out of the funk it was in,
backing up last weekend’s tough 2-1 victory over Sydney United by smashing
Hakoah Sydney City-East 4-0 in what was a dominant display on Sunday Evening.
We controlled the match from start to finish and if it wasn’t for Hakoah’s
goalkeeper it could well have been more than 4.
We started off confidently and looked switch-on right from the get-go. We had a couple of early raids on Hakoah’s goal inside the first 10 minutes but no major chances were created from any of them. Hakoah had a good chance to open the scoring also early on, but their player fluffed his lines and missed the chance. We continued our good play and good start to the match and 15 minutes into the first-half we had our reward, Jinya An put in a dangerous looking cross which was met by William Angel on his left foot, who came in from his Right-Wing to put the ball into the back of the net via a deflection. Only a couple minutes later we had our second goal in what was almost an identical goal to our first, another dangerous cross from Jinya An was once again met by William Angel, but this time no deflection was needed as he buried it passed the Hakoah goalkeeper to make it 2-0. For the rest of the first-half we dominated the play – possession and chances – we had another great chance from a free-kick late in the first-half but it was well saved. We could not further add to our 2-0 lead and so we headed for the half-time break looking comfortable.
At the start of the second-half it looked like we just continued on from where we left off in the first-half. We quickly got back into our groove and had a couple of chances to extend our lead, but both were well saved by Hakoah’s goalkeeper, the first from a header and the second from a quick free-kick which we took looking to catch them out. We were really bossing the game and passing it around at will, Hakoah could not get anywhere near us. But so long as the score stayed at 2-0 it kept Hakoah in the game and as the old saying goes – “2-0 is the most dangerous score-line in football” – and as it turned out Hakoah had a good chance from distance with a shot but it was kept out thanks to a great save from Paul Henderson. Despite this chance we continued to press and push for more goals and we would add to the score-line in the last 5 minutes. We scored our third from a well worked goal which saw Yianni Spyrakis have a simple tap-in and our fourth came from a nice pass from Radovan Pavicevic into the box which was met by William Angel this time on his right foot to complete his hat-trick. Right on cue the referee blew his whistle for full-time as we ran out 4-0 winners.
This was one of our better performances in 2017, we looked like world beaters out there and deserved our big victory. Sydney Olympic playing so well might have something do with being at Lambert Park, as we always seem to play well there and the stats back that up. Since the start of 2011 we have played at the venue 20 times for 14 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses.
A lot of the supporters have been calling for William Angel to be played in a more attacking position and this move was justified as he scored 3 goals and always looked dangerous on Sunday. It was also good to see Tass Mourdoukoutas back from Europe, as well as Darcy Burgess back in the starting XI for a second week in a row.
Everyone is playing well though as we head into the business end of the season and it is the right time of the year to be peaking. In terms of Finals Football, the results from the weekend mean we are all but assured of our spot in the Top 5 unless something ridiculous happens in the final round. But a Top 3 finish is now out of our reach.
For the Club Championship it was another 2 losses, the U20’s lost 4-0 and the U18’s suffered a 3-1 loss.
Next week is the last match of the regular season, we are away at the Sutherland Sharks on Sunday August 13, at Seymour Shaw Park in Miranda, Kick-Off is at 3pm.
Get out there and support Sydney Olympic.
We started off confidently and looked switch-on right from the get-go. We had a couple of early raids on Hakoah’s goal inside the first 10 minutes but no major chances were created from any of them. Hakoah had a good chance to open the scoring also early on, but their player fluffed his lines and missed the chance. We continued our good play and good start to the match and 15 minutes into the first-half we had our reward, Jinya An put in a dangerous looking cross which was met by William Angel on his left foot, who came in from his Right-Wing to put the ball into the back of the net via a deflection. Only a couple minutes later we had our second goal in what was almost an identical goal to our first, another dangerous cross from Jinya An was once again met by William Angel, but this time no deflection was needed as he buried it passed the Hakoah goalkeeper to make it 2-0. For the rest of the first-half we dominated the play – possession and chances – we had another great chance from a free-kick late in the first-half but it was well saved. We could not further add to our 2-0 lead and so we headed for the half-time break looking comfortable.
At the start of the second-half it looked like we just continued on from where we left off in the first-half. We quickly got back into our groove and had a couple of chances to extend our lead, but both were well saved by Hakoah’s goalkeeper, the first from a header and the second from a quick free-kick which we took looking to catch them out. We were really bossing the game and passing it around at will, Hakoah could not get anywhere near us. But so long as the score stayed at 2-0 it kept Hakoah in the game and as the old saying goes – “2-0 is the most dangerous score-line in football” – and as it turned out Hakoah had a good chance from distance with a shot but it was kept out thanks to a great save from Paul Henderson. Despite this chance we continued to press and push for more goals and we would add to the score-line in the last 5 minutes. We scored our third from a well worked goal which saw Yianni Spyrakis have a simple tap-in and our fourth came from a nice pass from Radovan Pavicevic into the box which was met by William Angel this time on his right foot to complete his hat-trick. Right on cue the referee blew his whistle for full-time as we ran out 4-0 winners.
This was one of our better performances in 2017, we looked like world beaters out there and deserved our big victory. Sydney Olympic playing so well might have something do with being at Lambert Park, as we always seem to play well there and the stats back that up. Since the start of 2011 we have played at the venue 20 times for 14 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses.
A lot of the supporters have been calling for William Angel to be played in a more attacking position and this move was justified as he scored 3 goals and always looked dangerous on Sunday. It was also good to see Tass Mourdoukoutas back from Europe, as well as Darcy Burgess back in the starting XI for a second week in a row.
Everyone is playing well though as we head into the business end of the season and it is the right time of the year to be peaking. In terms of Finals Football, the results from the weekend mean we are all but assured of our spot in the Top 5 unless something ridiculous happens in the final round. But a Top 3 finish is now out of our reach.
For the Club Championship it was another 2 losses, the U20’s lost 4-0 and the U18’s suffered a 3-1 loss.
Next week is the last match of the regular season, we are away at the Sutherland Sharks on Sunday August 13, at Seymour Shaw Park in Miranda, Kick-Off is at 3pm.
Get out there and support Sydney Olympic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)