Sydney FC is an association football club based in Sydney, Australia. They play in the A-League, the top-flight association football league of Australia.
Foundation of the club The first steps towards the foundation of Sydney FC were taken in April 2004 when Soccer New South Wales (now Football NSW) announced their intention to bid for a licence in Australia's new football (soccer) competition. The preference was for the club to play out of Parramatta Stadium. The bid was lodged with the Australian Soccer Association (now Football Federation Australia) on 19 July, challenged only by a consortium headed by Nick Politis, known as the "Sydney Blues", for Sydney's place in the 'one team per city' competition. A public row broke out between the two bidders after reports that the ASA were set to vote in favour of Sydney FC, causing Politis to withdraw his support for a team, and leaving Sydney FC as the only candidate remaining.
Sydney was officially launched as a member of the new 8-team A-League on 1 November 2004, with a 25% stake in the club held by Soccer NSW, the remainder privately owned. Walter Bugno was announced as the inaugural chairman of the club. On 11 December 2004, Soccer NSW announced that it would pull out of its involvement with Sydney FC amid concerns over part owner Frank Lowy's autocratic style in establishing the club and lack of consultation with Soccer NSW on key Sydney FC issues. These included the choice of the Sydney Football Stadium over Parramatta Stadium as the team's home ground, and the erosion of Soccer NSW's initial 100 per cent involvement to just 25 per cent.
By February 2005, Sydney had filled 16 of their allowed 20 squad positions – attracting Socceroos Clint Bolton, Steve Corica and David Zdrilic as well as youth internationals Justin Pasfield, Mark Milligan, Wade Oostendorp, Iain Fyfe and Jacob Timpano. German Pierre Littbarski was signed as head coach, to be assisted by former Norwich City player Ian Crook. Sydney FC played its first ever match against Manly United FC on 25 March 2005, winning 6–1. Shortly after, Sydney set off on a tour to the United Arab Emirates to play matches against local teams FC Hatta, Al Ain FC and Al Jazira, winning all three. Whilst in Dubai, Sydney FC announced that they had agreed to terms with former Manchester United player Dwight Yorke to join Sydney as their "marquee player" – one paid outside of the $1.5 million salary cap — for two seasons.
Pre-League Sydney FC's first competitive match was held against Brisbane Roar at Central Coast Stadium in Gosford as part of an Australian qualifying tournament to enter the 2005 Oceania Club Championship. After winning the match 3–0, Sydney went on to defeat Perth Glory and the Central Coast Mariners to win their first piece of silverware and qualify for the Oceania Club Championship, to be held in Tahiti. Despite an early scare against New Zealand club Auckland City FC, Sydney won all of their matches in the competition and qualified for the 2005 FIFA Club World Championship in Japan. The start of the 2005 Pre-Season Cup marked Sydney FC's first match at Sydney Football Stadium, as well as Dwight Yorke's first appearance for the club – Yorke scoring the first goal of Sydney's 3–1 win which stretched their unbeaten run to 9 competitive matches (15 including friendlies). Upon reaching the semi-finals, Sydney's unbeaten run finally ended at 11 with Perth Glory midfielder Nick Ward scoring in injury time to inflict the new club's first ever loss.
Season 1 – 2005–2006
Sydney FC entered the inaugural A-League season as heavy favourites for the title, and hosted their first league match against Melbourne Victory on 28 August 2005. This event drew a then-record crowd for a regular season match in Australia. The stated figure was 35,208 although this is likely to be an underestimation of the true crowd size. A large number of people who 'walked up' to the game was unmanageable for ticket sellers at the gate, and for only the second time in the history of the SCG Trust (the operators of Sydney Football Stadium), the gates were opened twenty minutes after the game had started, permitting around two–thousand fans to enter for free.
The season saw mixed results for Sydney in the new competition, including a 5–0 loss to Melbourne in October followed by a 5–1 win over Central Coast Mariners a month later. With a place in the finals-series on the line, Sydney lost just one of their last seven games to secure second place at the conclusion of the twenty–one game regular season, seven points behind Adelaide United. Sydney had beaten Adelaide 2–1 in the final round and again faced them in the Major Semi–Final. Over two legs, they defeated Adelaide 4–3 on aggregate, ensuring a home Grand Final which produced a sell–out crowd of 41,689 (above the stated capacity of Sydney Football Stadium). On 5 March 2006 they faced Central Coast Mariners, the nearest club to Sydney by distance, in the inaugural A-League Grand Final. Sydney won the match 1–0 after Dwight Yorke set up Steve Corica for the deciding goal, to claim the first A-League Championship.
During the off-season, coach Pierre Littbarski left the club following a dispute over his contract which involved a significant pay cut from his reported $700,000 first year salary. He was replaced by former England international and Motherwell manager Terry Butcher on 17 May 2006. Preparing for their second season, Sydney FC recruited Ruben Zadkovich (previously on a short-term contract with Sydney FC), Alex Brosque (Queensland Roar) and Jeremy Brockie (New Zealand Knights).
Season 2 – 2006–2007
The second season of the Hyundai A-League ("dubbed Version 2.0") was ultimately an unsuccessful and disappointing season for the defending champions. The club's administration had spent far more than it had earned over the course of the past two years, and subsequent budget cutbacks included the sale of marquee forward Dwight Yorke, a significantly reduced advertising campaign, and the loss of German coach Pierre Littbarski. The team's displays on the field were widely reported by Australian sports media to have ranged from showing glimpses of strong form to marked disappointment, and no real challenge for the premiership was mounted.
The off-field administration of the club came under equally heavy criticism. There were disruptions and disagreements within the club's controlling board, and disruptions in the dressing room involving several senior players and coach Terry Butcher. Amongst many other unfortunate events, the club was fined A$129,000 and three competition points for an alleged salary cap breach involving David Zdrillic. The Sydney FC squad also suffered through remarkably bad fortune with regards to injuries; at one point, only thirteen players were fit & available on the team sheet, including regular second-choice keeper Justin Pasfield. All of this amounted to disappointing attendances, ugly displays of football from what were previously regarded as a good team to watch and relatively poor performances.
Eventually, Sydney progressed to the finals series only by way of a hard-fought draw against the Queensland Roar in the final match of the regular season. The Newcastle Jets were drawn as the team's initial play-off opponents in the final series. Sydney Won the first leg 2–1 at home but lost the second leg 0–2 away and they were ultimately defeated by the Jets 3–2 over the course the two (home and away) legs.
2007 Asian Champions League campaign
Sydney FC participated in the 2007 Asian Champions League along with Adelaide United. The campaign was considered ultimately a success despite finishing second behind J-League powerhouse club, and eventual champions Urawa Red Diamonds. Sydney defeated Shanghai Shenhua 2–1 in their opening game at Yuanshen Stadium with goals from Steve Corica and Ufuk Talay. Their second game against Urawa Red Diamonds in Sydney finished an exciting 2–2 draw, with Uwawa fighting back from 2–0 down. However they lost their third game to Indonesian Super League champions Persik Kediri who won 2–1 in pouring rain. However Sydney would beat them 3–0 in the return leg at Parramatta Stadium with Corica scoring twice. In order to progress to the second round of the Champions League, Sydney would have to beat Urawa Red Diamonds at their home ground. However they could only manage to ground out a 0–0 draw, and Urawa went through by just 1 point. Steve Corica scored 4 goals in the League.
Season 3 – 2007–2008
For the third Hyundai A-league season, Sydney FC's playing squad retained a majority of players from the previous AFC Champion's League campaign, but was nonetheless altered through activity in the transfer market. On 5 August, David Carney was transferred for A$125,000 to English Championship side Sheffield United. The former Sydney player signed a three-year deal with the club which was reported to have been earning him around A$1.25 million a year.
New players included former Socceroos regular Tony Popovic and former LA Galaxy attacking midfielder, Michael Enfield. On 3 August 2007 Brazilian international Juninho Paulista, formerly of Celtic and Middlesbrough, signed with Sydney FC as the team's marquee player. They also secured youth players Ben Vidaic and Adam Biddle. Tony Popovic and Mark Milligan were named as captain and vice-captain, respectively. On 15 October 2007 Michael Bridges was signed on a season-long loan deal from Hull City as a replacement for Michael Enfield, who had sustained a serious knee injury.
After an early season run of disappointing results, on 22 October 2007, it was announced that manager Branko Culina would be sacked from the club. On 23 October, former Adelaide United coach John Kosmina was presented as the new head coach of the team. Kosmina got the side off to a flying start under his tenure, winning a clash with table-topping rivals Central Coast in a thrilling 3–2 victory before a crowd of nearly 18,000 at the SFS – a sign of bigger things to come for the Blues. This was followed by an impressive 1–0 away victory over the Newcastle Jets, as with former England junior Michael Bridges recorded his first goal in the A-League. An entertaining 0–0 draw at the Telstra Dome with rivals Melbourne Victory followed, as Sydney FC – still undefeated under Kosmina – began climbing the competition's ladder.
During all of this, the Los Angeles Galaxy played a one-off exhibition match against Sydney FC at Sydney's Stadium Australia on 27 November 2007. Sydney FC won the match, which was broadcast nationally on free-to-air TV by Network Ten, 5–3. David Beckham scored the first goal for the LA Galaxy from a free kick right on half time, as a crowd of over 80,000 looked on.
On 22 December, a crucial match against the Central Coast Mariners resulted in a 5–4 victory in favour of Sydney. The match, held at Bluetongue Central Coast Stadium, was described by critics as the best game ever to come from the A-League. The win was especially savoured after Sydney were down 2–0 after 15 minutes. The controversial sending-off of Mariners goalkeeper Danny Vukovic in the 16th minute turned the match in favour of Sydney. Ufuk Talay scored their 5th goal via a penalty in stoppage time.
On Friday 28 December 2007, Sydney FC came from behind for the second time in two weeks to defeat Adelaide United 3–1 and keep its unbeaten away record intact in front of a record Adelaide crowd of 25,039. A win over Wellington Phoenix and draws with Queensland Roar in Brisbane and Melbourne Victory in Sydney in front of the highest crowd of the season (for all A-League teams) gave Sydney a final league position of 3rd.