4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Thiago Cano has, at Persija, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persija this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
Player ratingsJocelin Ta Bi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Filip Kurto was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sydney FC know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sydney FC has been clear about where Henry Blackledge stands, which is more than many ever get.
37 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Joe Knowles has written the date down.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Selwyn Stevens trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
35 graduates from an academy now rated 11 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ashton Rinaldo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sydney FC the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nobody at Sydney FC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Sydney FC have no good answer.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Sydney FC will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Sydney FC would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sydney FC. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sydney FC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sydney FC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Takahiro Sekine and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The medical room confirms 17 days on the sidelines for Kavian Rahmani, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad8 Apr 2030
A place in the month's best eleven for Beckham Baker
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Beckham Baker has come out of that comparison in the side, and Sydney FC have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Víctor Campuzano is on it.
Commercial news is the news nobody sings about and everything else is paid for with. The board will call it a partnership; the accountants will call it the difference between this squad and a smaller one.
In brief
The dugoutJames Overy knocks on the manager's door
BoardroomThe Sydney FC board put their names to it
0‑3 against Melbourne City, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 37 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sydney FC can pretend not to have heard.
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Melbourne City; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sydney FC is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.