Monday 24 June 2019

Wollongong Wolves 2-0 Sydney Olympic

The win last week against Hakoah, was merely a momentary blip of hope, on the disaster that has been Sydney Olympic’s 2019 season. The club has not handled the pressure of having to defend a title and everything else is starting to come apart at the seams, even the respect for the supporters. I will get to that later.

In the first-half against Wollongong, we more than held our own and had a couple of really good opportunities to take the lead but once again, as has been the case for us all season, we failed to fire where it matters, in the front third. The opposition for all their huff and puff and reputation, only had 1 good chance in the first-half. So at half-time, we went in with the score at 0-0 and had hopes we could do something special in the second-half.

The second-half though, started in the worst possible fashion, as we copped a cheap soft goal once again almost straight from the kick-off, when there was no danger at all for us defensively. We once again panicked and we were punished.

We picked ourselves up and started to play OK, we once again had chances but it was not to be as at the other end, we conceded another cheap goal near the end of the match to succumb to yet another loss. We have only won once in nearly 2 months now. Shocking stuff.

With all the lauding about the Wollongong Wolves this season and the usual clownery of clueless people coming out of the woodwork to proclaim they “should be in the a-league”, after 1 good season in 10 years. The fact is they are very average, they won’t win the Grand Final and are very likely to pull a Blacktown Spartans from a few years ago. Overrated, Big Time.

For Sydney Olympic, we gave away more cheap goals on Sunday and in all honesty, we should never have lost that game. But a certain softness has creeped into this team, which was nowhere to be seen last season, this team is mentally soft.

The less said about what happened at full-time the better. All parties let their emotions get the better of them, but let it be known to those on the board, the coaching staff and those on the playing field, this season has not been good enough, wake up to yourselves and respect the fans who spend their time and hard earned money to drive to places like Wollongong in the rain, to support the team.

Respect the supporters. Telling them to “fuck off”, “do you know who I am” and “I will see you outside”, will only get you what you are after, and that’s a flogging.

The season is as good as over now, this is not about me being a pessimist or whatever, this is a fact. If the club and board had any football nous or smarts, they would be making hard decisions now, getting a jump on the rest of the competition who are still fighting hard this season and start planning for 2020.

Settle on who you want as coach now, leave sentiment out of that decision as it is a big one to make and get all your recruitment done nice and early and dump the players, who have proven to be a) not good enough, b) not playing for the shirt and c) have their best years behind them.

This season has been a total write-off and as disgraceful of an attempt at a defence of a title, as I have seen anywhere in any sport for some time.

I’m not sure what bringing in Riley Woodcock with 5 games to go was meant to achieve either, leave it a bit later why don’t you.

In the Club Championship, the 18s lost 1-0, and in the 20s they drew 1-1.

Our next match is against the Rockdale Kleftes, Sunday June 30 at Belmore Sports Ground. Here’s the players chance to show some balls and do something good for the fans this season. Kick-Off is at 4pm.

Monday 17 June 2019

Sydney Olympic 1-0 Hakoah Sydney City-East

We all rejoice in the experience and feeling of winning a match for the first time since we beat Marconi away, on May the 4th, 43 days ago for those who are counting. It wasn’t pretty, but the 3 points are what counts and hopefully we can mount some sort of a charge, in the final 7 rounds of the season.

The match, a home match for Sydney Olympic, had to be moved from Belmore Sports Ground after the downpour on Sunday Morning. Meaning we had to go to Lambert Park in Leichhardt on Sunday, a Lambert Park that now has a condemned grandstand, so even less people can actually go there these days.

I don’t think many people minded, as Lambert Park has always been a happy hunting ground for Sydney Olympic and in contrast, our home record at Belmore this season has pretty much been abysmal.

As you would expect from a match featuring 2 teams who are struggling and down on confidence, the first 5-10 minutes of the match didn’t begin with any great tempo or enthusiasm as both sides sussed each other out. Soon enough though, we got ourselves into the match and would from then on dominate proceedings.

Around 15 minutes into the match our quality showed as William Angel made a nice run down the right and then crossed it into the box, where Peter Kekeris made no mistake to finish from close range, to put us 1-0 up.

For the rest of the first-half we were in the ascendancy and had a couple of really good chances to extend our lead, but as has been the case this season, our finishing let us down.

The second-half was a bit more nervy and would be, so long as the score remained only at 1-0. Hakoah who are really struggling this season, didn’t really pose us too many problems defensively. Here and there they would mount an attack but we managed to snuff it out pretty quickly.

Our play was improving compared to recent weeks and we had yet, more chances during the second-half to put the game away for good, but again, the final product was just not there.

There was a massive sigh of relief at the full-time whistle, as we picked up a vital 3 points and finally got back into the winners circle.

That victory puts a significant gap between us and Hakoah in the Club Championship standings now and barring some sort of unmitigated disaster, we should do enough to avoid being relegated.

It was also only our 2nd clean sheet of the season, ironically, the only other one coming in our 1-0 victory over Hakoah earlier in the season. They must really be struggling.

Quickly on what I wrote last week about Tempe, nothing has been refuted by anyone at the club, you can draw your own conclusions from that. Added further intrigue, was the fact that the CEO in an interview he gave last week to NEOS KOSMOS, mentioned nothing of it, I don’t think he was asked, instead the interview focused on Sydney Olympic being interested or involved in some sort of phantom future National 2nd division.

In the Club Championship, the 18s and 20s were postponed for another day.

Our next match is a difficult one, down in Wollongong against the Wollongong Wolves, who have been scoring for fun all season and lead the competition by a good margin. Sunday June 23 at WIN Stadium in Wollongong. Kick-Off is at 3pm.

Monday 10 June 2019

Blacktown City 1-1 Sydney Olympic

The result in isolation, is one most Sydney Olympic Supporters could and would accept in any normal circumstances.

We battled well, we stayed in the contest, we created our fair share of chances and defensively we were not as calamitous as we have been, during the last 6 weeks. Some might even say that this team has “turned the corner”.

But given the predicament we find ourselves in as a club in season 2019, it’s another poor result, it’s yet more points thrown away, it’s yet another match where we simply had to win to stay alive in the League and to keep us away from relegation trouble via the Club Championship, and we once again didn’t.

The goal we conceded to go behind, was once again amateur hour stuff and just makes you want to shake your head at it all, a comedy of errors. It is not a co-incidence that we have only kept 1 clean sheet all season.

We did well enough to pick ourselves up quickly and find an equaliser, but that was as good as it was going to get.

The club and the board have been far too complacent, you can’t stand still in this competition or in any competitive field and be successful, but in our case, you certainly can’t go backwards and attempt to be successful and we certainly have gone backwards, in every aspect in 2019.

Recruitment to replace the departed players who did so well for us last season; Max Burgess, Riley Woodcock, George Timotheou has been non-existent. That is a lot of quality gone and those players simply, were not replaced. Recruitment has been an absolute shambles. A major failure of the people at the club.

Did the club and the board think they could just replace those quality players with fringe players from other clubs? If so, they have learned a harsh lesson. Let’s just hope that the harsh lesson doesn’t result in us being relegated to the NSW 2nd Division, which is a distinct possibility at this point, with only 1/3 of the season remaining.

Even in this mid-season signing window, the club have failed to strengthen. When you consider that, the majority of the other clubs have strengthened and have gotten better, it just goes to show how poor Sydney Olympic have been in 2019.

It has gotten to the point now, where even if the club did try and panic sign some players right now, it would be far too late and a waste of everybody’s time, money and resources anyway.

As for the Sydney Olympic starting XI line-ups that have been put out this season. Is some sort of game being played, to see how ridiculous of a line-up can be fielded on any given weekend?

There has been more tinkering then I care to comment about. Every week, chopping and changing, players out of position, players out, players in, every weekend without fail. Where is the continuity? How is that meant to make us successful on the pitch?

It has been a bizarre season and everyone must be hoping that there is no late season sting at the tail end of it.

To add insult to injury, last Wednesday Night, Sydney Olympic failed to progress to the Main Round of 32 Draw of the FFA Cup for the 4th year in a row. Losing yet another match at home in the process in yet another poor display, as we went down 3-1 to the Marconi Stallions in the Final Round Qualifier.

We have now not qualified for the FFA Cup since 2015, a 4th straight failure for the club in a competition where we were promised and assured by the club, that they were going to focus on and do everything to achieve that objective. That turned out to be lies.

When you actually look at the 4 FFA Cup Qualifiers we played this season; we were awful in all of them and realistically, could have been knocked out earlier by either of those opponents. Truly awful.

There is also a bit of news around regarding the so-called Tempe Reserve redevelopment, as it appears to have been abandoned. The exclusive dealing period between Sydney Olympic and the Inner-West Council, which was an agreement between the 2 parties to develop the highlighted area in the accompanying photo, has expired. Essentially this means that it will not go ahead.



There have just been way too many obstacles put in front of the club and the money is simply not there from the club either, to proceed and do anything.

Ironically or call it what you want, at around the same time, Canterbury-Bankstown Council and Sydney Olympic put out statements which included a story in the local paper, announcing that Peter Moore Field No.1 which has a grass pitch, will be ripped up and replaced with a synthetic surface.



No guarantees or timelines were given for when this latest phantom Sydney Olympic project is supposed to happen. But if it’s like the plethora of other promises during the last 62 years, I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

In the Club Championship, the U18s lost 1-0 and in the U20s we drew 1-1, more fantastic results. To all those who have scoffed at relegation talk, we are now in 2nd last place in the Club Championship. We need to wake up and start winning some matches, otherwise it will be trips to Rydalmere, Northbridge and North Turramurra next season.

Our next match is perhaps the most important match Sydney Olympic will play this season, against relegation rivals Hakoah Sydney City-East. Sunday June 16 at Belmore Sports Ground, Kick-Off is at 4pm. This is simply a must win.

Monday 3 June 2019

Sydney Olympic 2-2 Mt Druitt Town

1 Win, 3 Draws and 3 Losses. That is the home record of Sydney Olympic after 7 home matches so far in season 2019 and once again on Sunday Night, we threw away more crucial competition points at home to another lesser light of the competition, it is getting beyond the joke now.

We currently have a double problem.

We can’t put away enough of our many chances during matches to claim any victories and every time an opposition team attacks our goal, we react like frightened little schoolgirls and as a result, we are giving up way too many goals to our opposition and far too easily.

It is exactly how Sunday’s match against Mt Druitt Town panned out.

We created enough chances to win 2 matches. Alejandro Sanchez who continues to lead the way for Sydney Olympic, finished off 2 great chances to pick up his customary goals for the weekend. But when the rest were called upon, and in a position to contribute and put the ball away, they couldn’t.

In the end, that is what keeps on costing us, our poor finishing. It would cost us again, as we copped 2 cheap goals to let slip a certain victory.

The first goal we conceded was yet another “worldy”. Call it bad luck or whatever, but we have been on the receiving end of way too many of these flukey long range bombs and we fell victim to another one.

The second goal we conceded was like watching a car crash in slow motion and knowing the outcome before it happened. An opposition attacker beat our defence and our goalkeeper to a lob inside the box, to prod it home.

Adding to the frustration of everyone, especially the Sydney Olympic Supporters, was that we managed to not only take the lead once, but twice during the match, yet we crumbled and were pegged back both times.

As I said last week, the players look scared and the confidence of the entire joint is way down, and it is not something that can just be picked back up at the flick of a switch.

The games are running out, as are our opportunities to turn this season around. We have some massively important matches coming up and we need to get out of this funk we are in ASAP otherwise this season will slip away, which would be a shame and a waste of this year.

A team bonding session or whatever it may be (strippers, piss-up?) something needs to be done to spark this group of players to life. As our squad is far too good to be losing to and dropping points to some of the junk we have done especially at home, and we are far too good to be as low as we are on the ladder.

We need to turn it around. Fast.

For the Club Championship, the U18s lost 3-0 and in the U20s, they managed to somehow come up with a 2-1 win.

Our next match is an all-important Round 7 FFA Cup Qualifier on Wednesday Night June 5, against the Marconi Stallions at Belmore Sports Ground. Kick-Off is at 7.30pm. With the form we are in, we are going to need some sort of heroic performance to get through Marconi and finally get over this hump, that has seen us fall at this stage of the Cup for the last 3 seasons in a row.

Our next match in the League is on Sunday Afternoon June 9, away to Blacktown City at Lily Homes Stadium in Seven Hills. Kick-Off is at 3pm.