Season Over – Manly United 2-1 Sydney Olympic

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.